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I LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Cooies Received 

APR 11 IH06 

Copyriirht Entry 
cuss Jb ' XW. No. 


CUSS /! 

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Copyright, 1906, by Harpbr & Brothers; 


All rights reserved. 
Published April, 1906. 


The Princess Olga 


i 


The Princess Olga 

CHAPTER I 

I WANT a man,” he said, laying stress on the word 
— “a man strong, daring, resourceful.” 

It was Joseph Locke — the great Locke, head of 
the world-famed house of Locke, Cromwell & Co., 
who was speaking to his friend and, in extremely 
delicate affairs, private counsel, Edward Armitage. 
Without confiding where the services of the man 
he desired were to be employed or for what pur- 
pose, he had already explained that this commission 
was of the nature which demanded the usual dis- 
cretion of Armitage, who was the personification of 
that quality, invaluable to the vast undertakings 
always in the hands of Locke, Cromwell & Co. The 
banker was of heavy form and few words, conveying 
the larger part of his meaning to those who under- 
stood him — and. those who did not were rarely ad- 
mitted to personal intercourse with him — by a thun- 
der-cloud of frown or a lightning flash of eye. 

“If he is free to give his services,” answered 
Armitage, with confidence, ” I have the exact man.” 

“I impress on you again,” said the financier, 
“that he will need to have that administrative 
capacity to a degree, not only constructively but de- 
structively.” 


I 


The Princess Olga 

“I understand,” Armitage assured him. “He has 
equal force in either direction.” 

“Then let me see him,” directed Locke, turning to 
his desk as the signal for the departure of the other. 

Armitage’s faith in his selection was founded on 
neither intimacy nor even long acquaintance with its 
object. His guide was a penetrating perception — 
prized highly by the banking house — and incidents 
of his own observing. Once he had gone for Locke 
to Mexico, where the firm had bonded an extensive 
mining enterprise now threatened with labor troubles. 
He was to report if there were a possibility of ever 
bringing order out of a sickening chaos, marked with 
profuse bloodshed. The house was uneasy over the 
bonds, and must either rid itself of them or, if that 
were out of the question, find a means to have the 
mines worked steadily. 

The quiet, somewhat elegant emissary of Locke, 
Cromwell & Co. arrived at the railroad station to 
be escorted by troops; for if Joseph Locke nodded 
squadrons sprang to saddle, wherever there were 
governments, weak or strong. In the centre of the 
armed cavalcade the visitor rode through the brown, 
dismal foot-hills, his eyes smarting with the sting of 
alkali dust, flung up on the plain below, until he 
reached a semi-military camp as peaceful as a New 
England farm. 

‘‘It is the Senor Harding,” explained the besil- 
vered commander of the cavalcade; ‘‘he works the 
mines.” 

A gringo railroad had lent to the Mexican com- 
pany for a few weeks Gordon Harding, engineer, 
somewhat slim in the way of hickory; and in five 
days work was resumed, though not without dis- 
order. 


2 


The Princess Olga 

Armitage remained at the mines less than sixty 
hours. The evening before his departure he had an 
illustration of one of Harding’s methods. A dele- 
gation of strikers desired an audience, which was 
granted. But Harding would not permit its mem- 
bers to come within the lines of his martial rule. 
Nor would he take any save Armitage with him 
when he went out to hear what the forty odd men 
had to say. They begged to be allowed to return to 
their work. 

“You may all come back,” said Harding, quietly, 
“except you. Slater.” This one was an “organizer” 
from St. Louis. “ You are whipped. You all know 
it. You have had enough, including you, Slater. 
But you can’t come back. You don’t know how to 
work. We pay here a day’s wages only for a day’s 
work. You, Slater, don’t know how to do it.” 

Four hundred yards from the camp’s pickets the 
two were facing the twoscore. An ugly smirk crept 
around the mouth of Slater, and he moved forward 
out of the crowd, his hand stealing yearningly towards 
a pocket. 

“Don’t do it, Slater,” said Harding, calmly. 
“There are half a hundred Mausers aimed at your 
heart this minute by sharp-shooters who are surer 
than the rising sun. When you have come much 
nearer, or when you have touched your revolver, 
you will be out of the strike-organizing business for- 
ever.” 

With a face suddenly grown ashen, the leader 
slunk back among his fellows. 

“I was tempted,” said Harding, with a little rip- 
ping sound in his voice, “to let you come four feet 
farther. Remember next timel” 

At the warning Slater burst out in a torrent of 
3 


The Princess Olga 

atrocious abuse. For a moment Harding stood with 
a half-amiable smile on his smooth, brown face, his 
gray eye carrying mockery. Of a sudden, however, 
it flashed high, and he strode forward into the group. 

“Now,” cried the strike leader, “they don’t dare 
shoot into us, for fear of hitting you! What are you 
going to do ? What do you think we are going to do 
to you?” 

“Come out here with me,” commanded Harding, 
seizing him with a swift, powerful grasp and dragging 
him into the open before the others realized what 
had happened. He pushed him forward, where he 
was in front of all, even Armitage, under the clear 
aim of the pickets. 

“You march up to the camp,” Harding ordered, in 
a low voice. “You are a damned nuisance, and I’ll 
have you tethered for a while where you can’t inter- 
fere with the bread-and-butter of these and other 
poor devils. March!” 

Slater glanced at the stern eye surveying him, at 
the sharp-shooters back at the picket-line ; he waver- 
ed, faltered some word of protest, saw that it was 
useless, and began a sullen crawl to his punishment. 

“Go up to the superintendent and tell him my 
wish is to put you to work,” said Harding to the 
others. He strolled back carelessly with Armitage. 

It was arbitrary ; it was power. It was lawless ; it 
was success. 

Armitage returned to New York by the next train, 
reporting there would be no more trouble at the 
mines. 

In later years a Western railroad was driving a 
tunnel through miles of mountains. The President 
of the United States was planning a tour beyond the 

4 


The Princess Olga 

Mississippi. The great house of Locke, Cromwell & 
Co. was able to arrange that the chief magistrate of 
the nation should grace the formal opening of the 
huge work, if it could be made to synchronize with 
his trip in that region. It had not been planned 
that the construction should be completed for weeks 
after the date set for the flight of the President 
through that country. Yet the benefits of having 
his train be the first to dash through the marvellous 
bore were obvious. As Locke said to Armitage, 
“The advertisement would be worth millions to the 
road.” 

It was determined that every possible effort 
should be directed towards the opening of the mon- 
ster shaft in time for this sensational honor. Then 
it was discovered that difficulties were arising be- 
yond the ordinary. Delay after delay threatened 
not only to prevent the coup planned by Locke, 
Cromwell & Co., but to drag the final event beyond 
the original estimate of the engineers. But the word 
from the house in Wall Street was always to push on 
— to finish, if it were within the power of man to do 
so, before the arrival of the President. 

In the sixth week before the head of the nation 
was due in that part of the world Armitage received 
another commission involving personal investigation. 

“There seems no hope,” said Locke to him, “that 
we can be ready. It will not do to make a fiasco at 
the last minute. Go out and find if there is a rea- 
sonable chance. If there is not, drop all plans for 
the President’s participation; if there is, herald the 
forthcoming event all over the world.” 

When Armitage reached the scene of the under- 
taking he had his second view of Harding. “If I 
had known he was here,” reflected the confidential 

5 


The Princess Olga 

adviser of the banker, “I could have spared myself 
the trouble of a disagreeable trip.” 

Nevertheless, he spent an afternoon in examining 
the work. What he saw was the same power he had 
witnessed in Mexico, but exercised in different ways, 
though with similar results. 

There were thousands of men toiling with super- 
human endeavor, yet easily and as if they were all 
parts of vastly complicated but perfect machinery. 
The master-spirit of the energy and force was calmly 
moving around the works, looking at this man, at 
that; at the mighty engines here, the surveyor’s 
modest level there — always silent, but impelling 
men to do without sleep, to attain ends as if by in- 
spiration. The task was being done because of the 
will of the man who dominated the workers. 

Harding recognized Armitage with a little smile, 
and gave him no further attention. This was not a 
time for courtesies or commonplace conversation. 
No one in the army of doers seemed to feel the need 
of words. 

Armitage sent a simple telegram to Locke: “Turn 
loose the newspapers.” 

He knew nothing about engineering and construc- 
tion work. He was ignorant of the fact that, on the 
very morning of his arrival, new hinderances had been 
threatened by rods of flinty rock which had shown 
itself, where it had been expected that there would be 
soil and gravel. But it would have made no differ- 
ence. He was sure of his man. It was this quality 
of Armitage in judging the capacity of mental and 
moral agencies that made him worth an enormous 
retaining fee to Locke, Cromwell & Co. 

Later he made a tentative offer to Harding. It 
was the presidency of one of the great Eastern trans- 
6 


The Princess Olga 

portation systems. Harding was still less than 
thirty-five. When the banker had stated his needs 
Armitage had not mentioned his name to Locke, but 
the financier would have taken his word without 
question. He had not suggested Harding without 
first sounding the one he wanted to recommend, be- 
cause great men — there was none greater than Locke 
— do not like to be denied. Before he enlightened 
the banker he must know if his choice were willing 
to be chosen. He had no doubt any man ought to 
take the post; he suspected, with his unerring intui- 
tion, that Harding would not. Nor did he. 

“The work does not appeal to me,” said Harding. 
“The system is established. It is an old man’s job; 
or that of a woman — keeping a well-regulated house. 
There would be no fun in it.” 

“Old men for council; young men for war,” sug- 
gested Armitage, with his fine way of showing sym- 
pathy with every man’s feelings. 

“I’m not ready to vegetate, however respectably,” 
answered Harding, a little grimly. 

“I think you are right,” declared Armitage, 
though he was disappointed in not being able to 
satisfy Locke. “Nothing would suit you that did 
not embrace building up — you would not merely 
conserve?” 

“Building up,” returned Harding, thoughtfully, 
“or tearing down.” 

Armitage had remembered those words, as he 
always remembered everything likely to be of 
service to himself or his clients. Locke had not 
told him what use he wished to make of the instru- 
ment he sought, further than the intimation in his 
remark that the desired aid must have large ad- 
ministrative capacity, both constructively and de- 
7 


The Princess Olga 

structively. Building up or tearing down! This 
time Armitage’s intuition advised him that Harding 
would find the offer attractive. He telegraphed for 
him to come to New York at once, and Harding re- 
sponded with a prompt arrival. 

“What is it?” he asked. 

“I don’t know,” replied Armitage, “but it is what 
you ought to want.” And he left him at the door 
of the private office of the head of Locke, Cromwell 
&Co. 

Harding w^s closeted with the banker for two 
hours. This seems a brief space to people who ac- 
complish little things. To men like Locke and 
Harding it was a long time. When the engineer 
came from the conference Armitage was waiting for 
him. 

“Will you dine with me this evening?” he asked. 

“If you will take me to one of those Martin or 
Studio places,” was the answer. “ I have never been 
in one of them. I have had no leisure. For the first 
time in years I shall have an evening to throw away. 
I want to see some of your people — city people.” 

“Perhaps a theatre or vaudeville afterwards?” 
suggested Armitage, delighted with the prospect of 
sharing a coming giant’s interest in pygmies. 

“If you please,” smiled Harding. “I have some 
plans to consider this afternoon. Then, wherever 
you say.” 

Edward Armitage had no inquisitiveness which was 
not a part of his large usefulness in very large affairs. 
He had been profoundly impressed with the man 
who now sat opposite him in the upper gallery of 
the Martin. His desire to know what Harding had 
been asked to do for Locke arose not so much from 
doubt that in the end he would possess the full in- 
8 


The Princess Olga, 

formation from Locke himself as from his satisfac- 
tion in having been the means of forwarding some- 
thing likely to be agreeable to both those men. In 
the manner of the always diplomatic intermediary, 
he dropped a bait. 

“Now that you see the people of the city,” he 
said, “they bore you.” 

“They are not very interesting,” admitted Har- 
ding. “Do they do this all the time?” 

“ Pretty much,” laughed the other. “ There is noth- 
ing else to do.” 

“I should think it would inspire crime as a re- 
lief.” 

“It does,” assented his friend; “or, rather, it 
would, if there were the motive power.” 

“ The inspiration ?” 

“No, the motive power. It is all a question of 
steam pressure.” 

Harding raised his eyebrows. 

“You, for example, carry several hundred pounds 
of steam. Of course, you must run at express rate; 
either you do that or you explode. The latter event 
is the crime.” 

“And these?” said Harding, looking around and 
down at the various groups — callow youths or pallid 
veterans, and women of all kinds of complexions, 
either with feverish or with tired eyes. Harding’s 
had the white, shining gleam of the free animal; his 
strong, clean face was slightly flushed from the heat 
of the wine and of the room. 

“They are mostly moved by a battery connection 
with some other power — a very low voltage,” laughed 
Armitage. 

He himself had the polished exterior of a man of 
that world, with a resourceful eye and caste of jaw 
9 


The Princess Olga 

lacking decision no less than the muscular lines of 
Harding’s. 

“Don’t they ever find anything else?” asked Har- 
ding, more carelessly than contemptuously. 

“If the voltage accidentally goes higher, then it is 
invariably the crime,” smiled his host. 

Harding took in Armitage’s face and posture with 
a gaze that was over-long, shaking his firmly set 
head slowly. 

“You don’t explain it,” he denied. “They do not 
get the chance to try honest steam-power.” 

What he meant was that Armitage himself dis- 
proved his own argument. 

“They do not want the chance,” declared the 
other. “If you gave it to them they would feel a 
grievance, and they would refuse it, with, perhaps, a 
rebuff that you had insulted them with the intima- 
tion that they were not already superior.” 

“Then it is merely the atmosphere,” the man of 
action began, but broke off with a new light in his 
eye. “I am now looking at a woman who is differ- 
ent,” he said, in a voice which carried conviction. 

She was behind Armitage, and there was no op- 
portunity for him to see her till, a few minutes later, 
he found an excuse for turning to speak to the waiter. 

“By jove!” he exclaimed, “if she is not Mademoi- 
selle Vaillant!” 

Then, after a bow to the object of his remark, he 
smiled somewhat triumphantly at Harding. 

“She is not one of us,” he said. “She is foreign.” 

Armitage did not tell his guest that the elderly 
couple in whose company the young woman was dis- 
covered by him also had a connection with Locke, 
Cromwell & Co. Locke’s cashier and his wife were 
entertaining her with a view of the city, much as 
10 


The Princess Olga 

Armitage piloted Harding. Harding had noticed her, 
because, without being beautiful, her face, dark and 
small, with the oval caste of eye and countenance, 
was engaging, for its suggested strength of purpose 
and for its undisguised, though tolerant, scorn of the 
types around her. 

“She is sailing in the Uralia to-morrow,” said 
Armitage. 

And Harding looked at him as if expecting more 
definite information concerning himself. He had no 
doubt Armitage knew the plans he had under con- 
sideration, yet, in the way of the man to whom 
Locke, Cromwell & Co. could intrust important con- 
fidential business, the guest said nothing. Nor did 
his friend pursue the subject of the young woman’s 
voyage further. 

Harding waited for the other to offer to do what 
the open face before him clearly invited — volunteer 
an introduction. 

“If you cared to know one who is not of us, who 
is to leave the country to-morrow,” suggested Armi- 
tage, “it is the custom here.” 

He went over to pay his respects to the party, his 
light laughter and easy compliments floating plainly 
to the ear of the solitary man left at the table. Hard- 
ing watched them with that habit of over-long 
scrutiny which is borne of earnestness, regardless of 
demeanor. The New-Yorker returned to finish his 
cigar with the engineer. 

“When we leave here,” he said, “we will stop a 
bit to permit me to present you. After I do, stand 
there,” he added, with a little smile of well-advised 
management, “and the waiter will bring chairs at 
their table. Mademoiselle Vaillant sails to-morrow 
in the Uralia.'* 


II 


The Princess Olga. 

The programme was executed as arranged by the 
competent Armitage. He presented Harding as his 
friend from the West, laughing at the disclaimer of 
hebetude in the surroundings, to Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant — sailing the next day in the Ur alia. Armitage 
regretted that they were to lose her so soon. Har- 
ding did not indorse the sentiment ; yet his manner, in 
a way which brought a smile to the lips of his host, 
was one of active, somewhat eager absorption in the 
young foreigner. 

“This,” said the engineer to her, waving his hand 
over the room, “is new to you.” 

She admitted that it was. 

“Does it interest you?” he continued, flushing at 
the queer little fleeting glance which her dark eyes 
cast him, in warning that such a question could be 
answered only in the affirmative unless to the affront 
of one’s hosts. His expression had been one of 
downright frankness, his gaze honestly engrossed. He 
turned his eyes and then levelled them at her again. 

“You are going in the Uralia V he asked. 

“The Uralia” she echoed; and, “This is new to you 
also.” 

“How do you know?” he demanded, his manner 
giving a direct confession of pleasure at her insight. 

“You looked it,” she said, “in your attitude tow- 
ards it — not of interest,” she added, in a low tone, 
whose caution seemed to him sympathetically ap- 
proving. 

“In the Uralia ?” he asked again, for the two men 
were arising. 

At his renewed question she rang a little peal of 
laughter as she murmured her farewell. 

He was conscious that on their way out Armitage was 
scrutinizing him with something more than amusement. 

12 


The Princess Olga 

“You think she' is sufficiently attractive to have 
rewarded you for coming here?” his host asked. 

“She is a remarkable woman,” declared Harding, 
earnestly. 

“As evidenced by her conversation — that she was 
sailing in the Ur alia?'' 

“ By what she does not say — ^with her lips,” affirm- 
ed the man of action. 


CHAPTER II 


O NE hour before the Ur alia sailed, Gordon Har- 
ding was in the office of Joseph Locke. They 
had finished a second examination of the banker’s 
plans, and, for the moment, chatted. 

“I was glad,” said Locke, “that, after reflection 
yesterday, you decided to oblige me. It is a great 
favor, for I wish the thing done without noise or ex- 
citement. You will see to that; neither of us will 
care to have clap-trap tagged to our names. I really 
suspected that you would decline. I am grateful,” 
he repeated, “that you are obliging me.” 

“To tell you the truth,” answered the engineer, 
“my first judgment was that I should not go. My 
mind changed, I telephoned you last night, because 
then I was eager to do it.” 

The financial power had already made his ac- 
knowledgment of the favor. The cause of the re- 
consideration was of no interest. These were his 
final words as he stood near the door, tall and heavy, 
the lines of his forehead sinking as he spoke. 

“You understand the situation perfectly. Its 
fiscal side may become momentous, because the 
whole affair is a constant irritation. Crevonia ought 
to have gone the way of weaklings long ago. It 
would have, but for the fact that each of its great 
neighbors is greedy for the river — the territory is of 
no use to either — and the two cannot agree which 
shall have it. But all the Powers are unanimous 

14 


The Princess Olga 

that the persistent disturbances there, with the 
money complications, are intolerable. We want an 
end of them, but no fuss about the manner of work- 
ing out the problem. It must be done on such lines 
as we should follow here in setting a railroad on its 
feet, expecting it, thereafter, to take care of itself — 
on such lin^s as you will reorganize the Concession 
while you are on the bigger job. The Concession is 
a fortunate coincidence to enable you to keep every- 
thing quiet until it is time to act. You will look 
after that,” he added, with confidence, surveying the 
face of the other. 

Harding assented with a straight glance from the 
gray eye. 

“There are three claimants to be taken into seri- 
ous account,” Locke continued. “The King is for 
Alexander — pretty wild; some second-rate bankers 
are interested in George — ^utterly useless — to the ex- 
tent of getting back their loans to him in any fashion 
they can. Our man is Nicholas — stupid, vain, but 
steady. He is probably the best we can do, without 
a general upset which might entail big consequences 
in European politics. We have given him a suitable 
training for his work, and he has done fairly well at 
it — for that sort. There are other parties, as you 
will learn in detail, with all the miserable little plots 
and counter - plots, conspiracies and assassinations, 
of such nasty business. At the bottom of most of 
them is a woman. We will give them a programme,” 
he added, gruffly, “without petticoats.” 

He smiled grimly, looking at the younger man — 
the eagle’s eye to the falcon’s. 

“As the ground now lies,” he ended, “you will go 
ahead on the further personal directions you receive 
from our friends over there. Otherwise, whatever 
IS 


The Princess Olga. 

happens to demand changes in fixed plans, you will 
use your own best judgment, always with the pur- 
pose we mean to achieve. Good-bye.” 

Then Harding, going to his cab, ordered the driver 
to deliver him at the pier of the Ur alia. 

Modem banking-houses of vast ramifications exe- 
cute with cold-blooded precision commissions which, 
to the ordinary world, seem strangely inconsistent. 
Locke, Cromwell & Co. had purchased in the United 
States war vessels for insurgents in a celebrated 
South American revolution; the firm had shipped to 
the existing government torpedoes to destroy the 
same craft it had delivered. On the morning of the 
sailing of the Uralia, Armitage had two missions to 
perform. Mademoiselle Vaillant was the financial 
ward in America of Locke, Cromwell & Co. She had 
been in Colorado as the companion of an old lady 
who spoke no English, whose balance, kept with the 
American bank by European houses for her use, was 
sufficient. . The elder foreigner — she was supposed 
to be an aunt of the younger — had died, and Mad- 
emoiselle Vaillant was returning to the other side 
alone. For her comfort in the ship Armitage had 
arranged weeks before. Now, after the receipt of a 
message from Locke, he had spoken to the captain, 
who regarded any word from the representative of 
Joseph Locke as law, about the associates of the 
voyager, such as those at the table, etc. The com- 
mander of the vessel had given hasty orders to others, 
assuring Armitage that he would make himself per- 
sonally responsible for a satisfactory fulfilment of 
his desires. At the blowing of the first bugle Armi- 
tage was standing on the deck by the side of Mad- 
emoiselle Vaillant, when Harding strode up the gang- 
plank, his over-long scrutiny fixed on the pair. 

i6 


The Princess Olga, 

“Mr. Harding,” smiled Armitage to his companion, 
with the slightest light of mockery in his brown eye, 
“comes to say good-bye.” 

“To sail,” corrected the new arrival, his gaze still 
on the veiled face before him. 

Armitage laughed again. 

“I had heard as much,” he said. “In case there 
was truth in the report, I have already arranged that 
you should have the honor of a seat at the table next 
to Mademoiselle Vaillant.” 

“You have done me a favor that is greatly appre- 
ciated,” declared Harding, earnestly. 

“It will be a pleasure,” Mademoiselle Vaillant 
agreed. 

The last bugle for those who must go ashore was 
sounding, and Armitage left the couple standing at 
the rail, Harding giving him scarcely a glance of 
gratitude, while the small hand of the other waved 
a farewell to him on the pier. The parting view 
which Armitage had of them showed the rapt atten- 
tion of Locke, Cromwell & Co.’s new emissary on 
their sometime ward. The New - Yorker shook his 
head doubtfully, but only once. Then his eye light- 
ed with perfect confidence both in himself, who had 
chosen, and in the man he had chosen. 

“ Nonsense!” he said. “ Nothing in the world could 
shake that man from a purpose once he put it under 
way.” 

Spinning a net- work of bridge cables from crag to 
peak, smoothing mountains before a railroad path, 
leading armies of toilers where it was fitting to lead, 
driving them where they must be driven, Harding 
had not come to know many women, much less to 
understand them. 

17 


The Princess Olga 

In the week of voyage on the deck of a steamship 
one often sees more of an acquaintance than in years 
of ordinary intercourse, and acquires an intimacy of 
sympathy or aversion that is an astonishment to the 
most reserved. With calm satisfaction Gordon 
Harding faced the early truth that he was jealous of 
the moments he spent apart from Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant. 

Slight, under the usual height of a small woman, 
her eye quickly exchanging archness for seriousness 
ever and again, she was, in her manner of both grace 
and dignity, with yet a sparkle which thrilled his 
virile senses, a mystery to him. He made no effort 
to solve it. 

He had understood from Armitage — on the even- 
ing after he met her — that she had been something 
more than a companion, perhaps a secretary, to the 
wealthy foreigner whom she had accompanied to 
Colorado. She might have been a school-teacher, 
but she had a broader and more intimate knowledge 
of affairs than pedagogues are wont to possess. 
Again, in her innocence o^ such simple matters as 
the rule of three, she was sometimes childlike. Cer- 
tainly she had astounded him with her grasp of 
things which had not appealed to the engineer — busy 
with his mines, his bridges, and his railroads — the 
universal drift towards socialism; the difficulty of 
well-balanced government, both representative and 
more autocratic; the faults of tho jury system, on 
the one hand, and the problem, on the other, of pre- 
serving the judiciary from clamor if it were elective, 
from the pressure of special interests if it were ap- 
pointive for life. Then, with this all, she made no 
effort to conceal both her ignorance of and her con- 
tempt for the purely business questions. 

i8 


The Princess Olga 

“You must think me a cheerful idiot,” he declared, 
“because I have given so little thought to subjects 
on which you talk better than our statesmen, as I 
have read their speeches. I have been engaged with 
my profession — my business.” 

“Would you think me an imbecile,” she asked, 
gravely, yet smiling, “because I neither like nor un- 
derstand your business over which you Americans 
are so ecstatic?” She used French to express it. 
“We all have not only our tastes but our tasks.” 

“But a woman!” he exclaimed, gazing at her in 
his way, till she threw up her chin with a little gest- 
ure which he could not interpret. 

“In Europe they do not understand business,” she 
said. 

“Nor in ours; we would not have them,” he re- 
turned, earnestly. “I mean the other things which 
interest you — and me, though I have neglected them 
scandalously.” 

“At your task — if you have done it well,” she 
smiled. 

“I have tried,” he answered, with his candor. 
“First, it was my brea'd-and-butter ; next, my de- 
light.” 

“Mine was not choice,” she replied, simply. 

“You have done it well,” he declared. He be- 
lieved she referred to her livelihood by teaching or 
a secretaryship. 

“Only as I must,” she protested. 

“It is strange that I should have met you,” he in- 
terjected, swinging his shoulders powerfully. 

“How?” she inquired, giving him the look he 
could never fathom — the dignity, the feminine in- 
terest in compliments bravely, insistently offered 
unadorned. 


19 


The Princess Olga 

“That I, who am always buried in the West, 
should be here — for the once — the opportune time,” 
he said. 

“Each through the same agency — Mr. Armitage?” 
she murmured. 

She was looking at him from under lowered lids, 
and he studied the long, dark lashes. He did not 
take up the hint as to Armitage, and her eyes, now 
opened wide, met his again. 

“ I have also been too busy to go abroad before — 
even on business,” he laughed, frankly. 

“I had thought,” she said, “as you first stood 
near us in the restaurant, that you were a soldier.” 

“I was educated to be one,” he answered, pleased 
as he had been when, at that meeting, she had read 
that the city idlers, seeking shallow amusement, did 
not interest him. 

“A woman,” she said, as if with mild reproof, 
“understands, though she may dread, the military 
profession.” 

“It is no longer a profession with a future,” he re- 
sponded, seriously. “ After West Point — stagnation.” 

“But the Spanish war?” she asked. “Did you 
regret that you were not a soldier?” 

“I went — such as it was,” he replied. 

“Because it promised a future?” 

“Noblesse oblige,” he avowed. “There was noth- 
ing to do. We — all the West-Pointers — went because 
it is tradition.” 

“Then you did nothing?” 

“Nothing but laugh.” 

“Laugh?” 

“At what we should do to them, having no armies, 
no fleets ; what others might have done to us, having 
no armies.” 


20 


The Princess Olga 

“You think so poorly of your army as that?” 

“Not now,” he disclaimed, earnestly. “We learn- 
ed our lesson — for how long,” he added, gravely, “I 
do not know.” 

“Then you again left the army?” she asked, in her 
tone of half reproach. 

“For my business,” he said. 

“And now?” 

• “Always the same — ^business — and you ?” he added, 
in a lower voice. 

At the word she had drawn slightly away, but 
said, as if granting a conditional pardon, “Until the 
ship touches at the first port, where business may 
become the all ?” 

For a moment he hesitated, his gray eye seeking 
hers and not finding it. 

“I shall be very busy,” he admitted, frankly. 

“Railroads,” she said, “are a powerful toy, I can 
comprehend. It is one of the greater things, the 
material achievement, that a woman can feel.” 

He did not follow her suggestion. She let her 
glance run away idly over the vessel and out beyond 
to the measureless sea. Of a sudden he flushed 
slightly with the perception that his conversation of 
business was not a topic with which a woman wished 
to kill an ocean voyage. And she was young. He 
believed that she was not more than twenty-two; 
she was, in fact, nineteen, with a more mature look 
because of her manner — that manner which charmed 
and mystified him — and the development of her edu- 
cation or knowledge in those subjects in which she 
was academically superior to him. 

“I am going on to be an old man,” he laughed, 
lamely, “and it is easy for the old to bore the young. 
We shall talk no more of business.” 


21 


The Princess Olga 

Then he revealed a puzzled tone strangely out of har- 
mony with the set of his jaw and the vigor of his glance. 

“But what am I to do?” he asked. “What is 
there of which I may tell you?” 

“Of your life as the soldier,” she granted. 

He shook his head. 

“Incomplete; of no consequence,” he said. 

“Of what you expect to do over on our side — 
what I understand; what interests me always — if it 
interests you,” she suggested, laughing, but guard- 
edly. And he scanned her face. 

“Only business — for others,” he rejoined, a little 
grimly. 

“Shall we take the old lady who is lame for an- 
other walk about the deck?” she asked. 

One thing, however, 'they shared in common — the 
facile use of French ; she naturally, he by acquirement 
to a perfection unusual in an American and one so. 
entirely devoted to material accomplishments. He 
had assured her that he had never been abroad ; yet 
she might have been taken for English — and her 
command of the language was easy to the degree of 
a mastery of colloquialisms — less readily than he for 
a Gaul. In one of her earliest deck walks she spoke 
to him of this. 

“Oh,” he explained, “of course I had it at the 
academy ; afterwards a young French engineer and I 
bunked together on the plains, and we kept it up. 
Since he culled his English from all the others, and I 
my French only from him, we never talked to each 
other in any tongue but his — and we have always 
been together; he is on my staff to this day. Dur- 
ing my absence he is in charge of such work as I 
have in hand at home,” 


22 


The Princess Olga 

He always called it work, never by a milder term, 
as he spoke not of his profession but of his business; 
and she smiled approvingly at this man who feared 
to bore a girl, yet carried himself with the calm con- 
fidence of one who should be accepted as satisfying 
the essentials. 

In a vague, distant way, also, he participated for 
a moment, and not advantageously, in one of her 
sanctities. On a rough day, when it was difficult for 
her to keep her feet, they had been on deck, and 
when she went within he accompanied her, while she 
steadied herself on one of his arms, the other carry- 
ing her steamer rug, to her cabin. 

After she had opened the door, he stepped far 
enough inside to deposit his burden on the transom. 
In the action he fronted a photograph leaning on the 
little stand. He might have taken no notice' of it, 
though his power of observation was both quick and 
close, had she not reached out a hand, jealously and 
warningly, as if to turn it, then checking that motion 
and interposing herself between him and the pict- 
ured face — a very ordinary one in appearance, of 
the German or Slavic type, showing only from the 
bared shoulders up; plain, rather dull-looking feat- 
ures, with that semblance of flatness on a round 
surface, as in the way of some women who are small 
and fat. 

But swift as had been her gesture and step to hide 
it from his view, unwittingly he had taken in not 
only the lines but the characteristics of the por- 
trayed face — even the handwriting on the lower card, 
in a foreign script which he could not translate; and 
underneath that — evidently some intimate sentiment 
— the simple signature, “Olga.’* 

As he withdrew, having deposited the rug, Mad- 

23 


The Princess Olga 

emoiselle Vaillant had a little spark in her eye. In 
expressing her thanks for the service she was notice- 
ably cold. 

But he went on deck again without reflecting on 
the incident of the photograph. He did speculate 
on the extent to which rising color enhanced her 
looks. 

As the voyage wore on, their fellow - passengers 
could not fail to comment on his devotion to the 
young woman who travelled alone. They did not 
see what he realized and strove, with a quiet force, 
to correct — that as his attentions became more press- 
ing, she grew more distant, never denying him her 
presence, yet holding herself aloof with the elusive 
reserve which mystified him. Still, she could not 
but appreciate what it means to any woman to have 
the close interest of a man of his qualities, of a suc- 
cess in the achievements which the world • admires, 
to cause others to point him out as the great builder 
of great works, and to lead them to turn their heads 
for another glance at his firm, sure carriage while he 
paced the deck alone or with her. 

On the last day he reproached her frankly with 
not permitting him to think that he might ever see 
her again. She flushed under her veil, but met his 
eyes fairly. 

“I could have no expectation,’* she said, a faint 
archness in the dark eyes, “that I could rival your 
business.” 

She had laughed lightly, but then her lids narrow- 
ed, as they so often did, when they discussed the 
subject of his work abroad, without once having it 
defined by him. 

“You have had my candid confession,” he replied. 


The Princess Olga 

“that I shall be very much engaged, deeply en- 
grossed, until I have finished my task. It does not 
follow that I shall not finish; that if I should not, 
there would not be the opportunity for me to be, 
perhaps, of service to you — if there is nothing else 
with which I might appeal for your favor.” 

At the word “service” she cast him a glance of 
inquiry. 

“I mean — ” he said, and stopped short of further 
promise. “I dare say there is nothing in which I 
could be of use if I were entirely free to volunteer all 
of my time.” 

“And you are not free?” she said, with unfeigned, 
feminine pique. 

“Not for some time,” he acquiesced. 

“If you were,” she retorted, with a warning note, 
“the interest could not be large, failing importance 
in the cause.” 

“Not you — not you,” he protested, seriously, so 
that the color rose again in her cheek. 

“I mean the object of my concern — it is of so little 
consequence,” she replied, somewhat wearily. 

“I am the old man boring you again,” he inter- 
jected, quickly, at her tone. 

She shook her head slowly, her small hand waving 
aside his clumsy apology. 

“You are not old,” she said, thoughtfully. “It is 
I who, in my failures, am so much older than you in 
your successes.” 

“What is that failure?” he asked, in a sharp, biting 
accent. 

“Little enough to the world,” she answered. 
“Much— all to me.” 

“All?” he echoed. 

“Everything — to me.” 


25 


The Princess Olga 

“If it is so,” he said, “if there is nothing else that 
interests, that could interest, you, may I not know — 
perhaps — ’’ 

“Only a trifling inheritance,” she interrupted. 

His face fell; something for the legal mind, not for 
the ’man of action; for the courts, not for sheer will. 

She caught his expression and said, “And you 
will be so busy,” adding, “It is a birthright, how- 
ever tiny; there is the wrong — there is the wrong,” 
she repeated, her little white teeth flashing as the 
words came swiftly. 

Harding stood with a thoughtful look on the 
brown, hard cheek. 

“In my own country,” he said, “I should not 
know what to advise about such a case. In France, 
or wherever it might tte, with the different laws, I 
should be quite useless. It was very silly for me to 
presume,” he began, and broke off an obviously 
superfluous explanation. 

For the while she said nothing, then smiled at him 
very naturally, with none of the aloofness of recent days. 

“ It could scarcely be of consequence in any event,” 
she assured him, and would talk of Mr. Armitage — 
where Harding had first met him, with his faculty for 
understanding situations and his gift of amiability. 

When Harding had told her, she appearing to fol- 
low his account of the Mexican affair more with 
politeness than with closeness, she gave a little 
shiver in the strong breeze sweeping the deck. He 
stepped forward eagerly as if it were for him to shield 
her from the cold ; but she turned towards the cabin. 

“I shall go and make ready for the disembarking,” 
she said, half-absently. 

Then he saw that the harsh air under which she 
had shivered had made her pale. 

26 


V 


CHAPTER III 


O N the morning of their going ashore Harding 
spoke to her sternly, his face looking as if he 
were hewing away a hill. 

“You have not given me the permission I asked,” 
he said. “Of course, you know I shall come — that 
I shall find you.” 

“You will be very busy,” she answered, with a 
faint smile of derision. 

“I shall finish my business and find you,” he de- 
clared, grimly. 

“It will be time enough then to consider your re- 
quest,” she replied, a little coldly. 

“Meanwhile, you do not tell me where you are to 
be.” 

“I do not know.” 

“You give me no address where I may reach you.” 
“It is of no consequence,” she said, in French. 
“Not to you — to me a great deal,” he denied, with 
the ripping note in his voice. “I shall find you. 
Where are you going now?” 

“Where are you going?” she countered. 

“First to London.” 

“Then I shall be in Paris.” 

“My address in London,” he went on, stubbornly, 
“will be in care of Locke, Cromwell & Co. I shall 
come to Paris, where also my address will be at their 
house.” 

“I shall not stay in Paris,” she informed him. 

27 


The Princess Olga 

“Probably I could not see you if you did,” he an- 
swered. “But afterwards — some time.” 

“It is hardly anything to be counted on,” she de- 
clared, her lips closing firmly after the last word. 

“I count on my determination,” he avowed. 
“You will let me look after your trunks — if we are 
both going to London before you cross?” 

“I am not going to London,” she answered. 

“Where?” he demanded. 

“I do not know — I shall not know until we are 
ashore — till some one whom I am expecting meets 
me. 

He gave her the over-long scrutiny till she flushed 
under its watchful, dissenting expression. 

“Is it a man?” he asked plump out. 

She nodded her head, looking into his eye with 
the queer expression under the lids that mystified him. 

“I shall stay long enough to have a glimpse of 
him,” he promised, with a slightly harsh laugh. 

“And a woman,” she added. 

“It makes no difference,” he declared. 

“They are old,” she said, hurriedly. “He and his 
wife are come to take care of me; it has shocked them 
to think of my travelling alone. It would terrify 
them to know that I have been so much with you, 
and no one to accompany me. Our ways — on the 
Continent — are’ different from yours,” she ran on, 
somewhat breathlessly. “I would prefer that you 
did not see me — that they did not know of your — 
kindness to a lonely traveller.” 

She smiled at him, half mocking, half appealing. 

‘ ‘ I shall not interfere — now , ” he answered . “ I shall 
come to Paris or to Vienna or to Constantinople or,” 
he added, slowly, “wherever you are. Meanwhile, I 
do not wish to embarrass you — if — ” 

28 


The Princess Olga 

She waited for his condition; but he did not give 
it until she smiled again, this time protestingly. 

“If you assure me that they can look after your 
comfort when you land.” 

“I told you,” she replied. 

“Then I am to say au revoir now?” he asked, in a 
low voice. 

“Yes, good-bye,” she answered, her tone accentu- 
ating the distinction of meaning between her words 
and his. “And you have made the voyage interest- 
ing. You were very thoughtful. I have learned 
much from you — things, perhaps, we were all better 
in my world — in Europe — for understanding.” 

He laughed confidently, seeking her roving glance 
with his stubborn. 

“You call my devotion interesting — a sort of six- 
day education, perhaps, in the kindergarten form?” 
he demanded. 

She ignored his declaration — he intended it to be 
— of love; but she was paler than when she had left 
him on the evening before to arrange for quitting 
the ship. He noted her whole manner carefully, 
taking no satisfaction from it, yet abating none of 
his purpose. If she wished to check him, she made 
the mistake of denying him with a look both distant 
and proud. Instantly the expression of his face 
changed in a way to startle her far out of her com- 
posure. His manner was as of one who, driving 
fierce horses on a compelling curb, suddenly gives 
them their heads, letting them plunge on beyond 
control, for grim love of the dangerous sensation of 
being swept by ungovernable power. His jaw was 
set against the emotion which shook him, but all the 
rest of his being betrayed superlative satisfaction 
with the riot of his virile nature. When he spoke 
29 


3 


The Princess Olga 

his words had a remote roll like thunder; in the end 
they hurled themselves on her, helpless to stay them. 

“I came,” he declared, his features exultingly 
alight, “to find a new work for a pastime, rather 
trifling, perhaps. I have found you — then love of 
you — then — ” He brushed away any word that 
might attempt to define his meaning, his gesture so 
irresistible in its suggestion of bodily strength and 
of triumphant will that she fell back from him with 
a smothered cry. 

“Do you suppose,” he demanded, now in a low 
voice, vibrating the depth of his feeling, “when I 
have found that, I am going to give it up — to lose 
you?” 

For a moment he surveyed her with a gaze of con- 
tempt for the thought she might have that the in- 
evitable was to be blown away like soap-bubbles by 
frivolous lips. Then suddenly he returned to his old 
self, smiling his calm confidence. 

But she could not at once slip back into the for- 
mality of their acquaintanceship; she still trembled, 
her glance avoiding his, close and firm. 

“Please do not,” she expostulated, under her 
breath. “We do not know each other — scarcely 
anything of each other.” 

“To say that is idle,” he rejoined, flatly. 

“You will remember about my friends ?” she faltered. 

“I shall do as you wish — now,” he assured her. 

She gave him a swift, appealing glance that again 
fired his brown cheek. 

“Will you say good-bye now?” she asked. 

“I will not.” 

“I mean for the rest of the voyage — the few 
minutes before we shall all be joining those who are 
expecting us.” 


30 


The Princess Olga 

“You do not wish me to have any of the last 
minutes with you?’’ 

She nodded her head in affirmation of his charge. 

“ Au revoir,” he said again, with distinct emphasis. 
Stretching forth his hand abruptly, he probed her 
eyes, this time with a short but sure glance. Her 
fingers wavered a trifle as they fell in his, strong and 
steady; but he had no other word or expression of 
countenance. 

For the next half-hour he paced the deck as if 
he knew no soul in the ship. At the time he was 
absorbed in thoughts, which were not of the nat- 
ure that gave his figure the air of alertness which 
impressed Armitage as the signal of the man of 
action. 

Yet when he was landed later he stepped into a 
different atmosphere. Beginning his business mis- 
sion, he was the Gordon Harding of the Mexican 
mines and the Western railroads to the exclusion of 
everything else. Striding to the English cars which 
were to whirl him to where the first of his work lay, 
he caught no more than a glimpse of three, whose 
attitude towards one another, if he had observed it, 
would have struck him as something unfamiliar to 
his experience. 

But he was not intent on them. He was more 
than following the injunction of Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant not to interfere; he was ignoring her. He saw, 
only vaguely, a tall, heavily built man of more than 
sixty, with flowing, snow-white beard, talking and 
gesticulating with a sort of guarded fervor. At 
Mademoiselle Vaillant, Harding did not look at all. 
If he had done so he Could not have failed to see 
that her eyes followed his quick, firm tread away 
from her party, and that, beholding him go, she 

31 


The Princess Olga 

flushed suddenly, as he had seen her do twice in the 
Uralia, and then paled. 

He hurried away to London, was buried in his own 
affairs there for not more than three or four days, 
and crossed the Channel. In Paris his daily routine 
was much what it had been in England — conferences 
behind closed doors with bankers, trips to factories 
or storehouses, brief flights into outlying districts, 
Harding always with an ease in his despatch of busi- 
ness, yet with a hidden force that made those with 
whom he came in contact involuntarily gather them- 
selves as if for a long leap or a heavy push against 
an obstruction. 

Very often, when he left a group of financiers who 
were used to stock-market panics, or perhaps men 
who had been through physical disorders as violent, 
they glanced at one another inquiringly and drew a 
long breath, though throughout the meeting he had 
been of the most even tone and reserved manner. 
As he looked at one when in earnest conversation or 
at the point of decision, a slow light rose in his gray 
eye till it was all illumined as with a glow, soft, yet 
full. One other trait his countenance had, to the 
wonder of those who met him for the first time in 
debate — a long streak would sink on his forehead 
quite from his hair down to the lower line of his 
brows, and it was then that one felt an overpower- 
ing sense of elation at acting with the man who so 
quietly worked his spell of power. 

There was one variation of his constant march 
from private offices to foundry and from directors’ 
meetings to a closed room, where he worked by him- 
self on charts, tables, and reports. Late at night he 
would take the results of his labors, and, entering a 
32 


The Princess Olga. 

motor-car, which he drove himself, dash miles into 
the country. The estate where he invariably inter- 
rupted his journey was notorious to all the popula- 
tion of France as a secluded lodge of the greatest 
banker in the republic. Frequently it was three, or 
four o’clock in the morning when he again rolled into 
the city, but he was always at his usual engagements 
by eight. 

Driving swiftly back to Paris through a slackening 
rain one dark night, Harding’s car overhauled an- 
other in difficulties at the road-side. He called out 
in French to know if he could be of assistance, and 
the chauffeur answered that he was afraid his ma- 
chine was out of commission for some time. Harding 
went splashing over the wet road to where the un- 
fortunate motor was halted. Following a brief word 
to those in the car, who, owing to the weather, had 
made no attempt to come forth from their shelter, 
he gave his attention to the machinery. Finally the 
American, after a short inspection, raised himself, 
looking within sharply. 

“I am afraid,” he said to the passengers, “your 
car is damaged beyond near use. If I may carry 
your party the rest of your journey to Paris in 
mine — 

The voice answering him from the deep shadow 
within was Mademoiselle Vaillant’s. 

“We are General Krag’s party,” she said. “Un- 
fortunately, my host speaks neither French nor Eng- 
lish, so that he cannot thank you save through me. 
We shall be grateful for your rescue of us from our 
uncomfortable situation. The General begs me to 
say that, if you car^ accommodate Madame Krag, 
himself, and me, we shall leave his chauffeur to guard 
the car, going on in yours by your courtesy.” 

33 


The Princess Olga 

Harding had taken one of the lamps from the 
hand of their man, and, holding it up, peered in, to 
find the heavy figure and whitened locks which he 
had caught on the steam-ship landing. Beside him 
a squat, somewhat miserable-appearing old lady, 
whose sleepy eyes seemed to remain open through 
an effort of her will. 

The rescuer and chauffeur must search in both 
cars for water-proofs, and made out very well, while 
the rest of the group encouraged them. General Krag 
with his guttural grunts of approval, his wife with 
little, somnolent murmurs, and Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant with repeated apologies, both in French and in 
English. When the four were finally off in the open 
car. Mademoiselle Vaillant in front with Harding, 
the rain slanting noisily against the rubber of her 
coat, he gave a laugh which might mean anything. 

“Is that your cold sympathy, monsieur, despite 
your generous relief?” she asked, in a whimsical tone. 

“It is my suspicion,” he said, in French. 

“Suspicion?” she exclaimed, somehow moving 
farther away from him. 

“Have you had the chauffeur long?” he asked, 
ignoring her question. 

She turned her head to those behind, speaking at 
some length in their guttural tongue. 

“Long enough, monsieur, to have tested his capa- 
bility,” she answered; “and his integrity was abun- 
dantly vouched for. General Krag assures me, by those 
from whom he obtained his services. What is it?” 

“It is of no use to cry over spilled milk,” he said, 
in English. 

His return to his own language for the proverb 
and his curt tone startled her to a new inquiry, for 
once more she addressed those in the tonneau. 

34 


The Princess Olga, 


“They are very sure of him,” she said again, peer- 
ing at him as if she would read his face in the gloom 
of the night. 

“It is of no consequence,” he replied, in French. 
“Your loss is my gain.” 

“Our meetings are destined to take place in un- 
usual places,” she said, half-defiantly. 

“Some time,” he answered, in the grim voice, “we 
shall have one at your home — you have never given 
me the address.” 

He was driving, as he seemed to do everything, 
with the sure touch and confident air, shooting the 
car on a swift, straight flight, though it hurled 
masses of water far from the roadway as the flash- 
ing tires dashed away the leagues between them and 
Paris. Around curves, gentle or sharp, up grades 
and down the drops where they shot, he held the 
leaping metal to a true course in the streaming path 
which his lamps thrust before him. As they were 
darting towards a village, where ahead of them a 
single flame shone above a fountain, she said, in a 
queer voice, “Monsieur drives very swiftly on a dark 
night.” 

Instantly he checked the speed. 

“If it alarms you, or is uncomfortable — ” he said. 

“Not at all,” she laughed, musically. “I thought 
how anxious you seemed to have the journey ended.” 

“You are wet, for all the wraps,” he answered; 
“and it is late — for Madame Krag; she seemed 
tired.” 

“But I was admiring, not complaining,” she pro- 
tested. 

Then she offered a challenge which came at a 
favorable time for him to glance at her. They were 
careening into the village street, and her words were 
35 


The Princess Olga 

spoken just as they fled around a corner past the 
fountain where burned the solitary light. 

“I was wondering,” she said, in English, “that one 
could be so sure of his way on a strange road — going 
so fast, and the darkness like pitch.” 

He was looking at her face, and her eyes had that 
half-lidded expression under the lamp, above them 
only for an instant. She liked his searching expres- 
sion so little, whatever the cause, that she bit her 
lip almost as quickly as his. eye fell on her, and he 
saw the involuntary act. 

“It is not a strange road,” he said, quietly; “I 
have driven it often.” 

For quite a minute she was silent. 

“Nevertheless,” she declared, “I marvel at your 
skill — and daring.” 

“This sort of skill,” he replied, “is but experience. 
There is no daring, since the result is certain.” 

“Certain for your hand,” she protested. 

“No other hand than mine should be doing this 
pace,” he answered, with calm decision, “with you 
here. It is safe.” 

In some purpose of which he had no inkling she 
became gay, arousing him occasionally as she had 
been wont to do on the steamer. Once she harked 
back to the motor. 

“We were lucky,” she said, “to have monsieur out 
so late, else we might have been sitting in the tor- 
rents till now.” 

“It was no later for the rescuer than for madem- 
oiselle,” he gave back, quietly; “much luckier, how- 
ever.” 

“We had been making a long journey,” she re- 
joined. 

“And I a short one,” he replied, dryly. 

36 


The Princess Olga, 

“If monsieur regrets,” she thrust, with spirit; but 
she could not conceal perturbation. 

“He is overjoyed to be at the service of your 
party; he is content to have you at his side.” 

They were nearing the city now, and there were 
lights aplenty. When his eyes were not commanded 
to the scrutiny of the road he watched her face. 
The raindrops, though the fall had ceased, were still 
glistening in her dark hair. Her eyes sparkled from 
the rush of air and the exhilaration of their flight. 
Of a sudden his face became graver, and she could 
not, or did not, conceal that the expression gave her 
concern. 

“We have to thank you,” she said, “for getting us 
back with more despatch than we could have fetched 
ourselves though we had not suffered the accident.” 

“You have no doubt about your chauffeur?” he 
asked, frowning. 

She was studying every shade of his countenance, 
and again turned to those behind, speaking in their 
tongue hastily and at length. 

“None,” she declared, at last. 

He made no reply, driving in at diminished speed, 
with full opportunity for him to give her the over- 
long scrutiny. 

“Why do you not tell me your suspicions?” she 
asked, eagerly. 

“It is of no consequence,” he repeated, in French, 
as before. 

She made no further effort to gain his meaning; 
and almost immediately after there was no need, for 
he asked her where he might set them down — he re- 
minded her that he did not know her hotel, much 
less her permanent address. 

“At a cab-stand,” she said. 

37 


The Princess Olga 

He shot a straight glance into her eyes, holding it 
there. 

“If you please,” she said, firmly; “it is the wish of 
General Krag.” 

“Oh, very well,” he assented, with calmness. 

Yet when he had run in to the sidewalk near 
where the sleepy coachmen were waiting, and after 
the Krags had thanked him, through her interpreta- 
tion, he spoke to her in a low voice, somewhat in 
puzzlement, somewhat in concern. 

“There might be two ways,” he said, “in which 
your car was put out of use. Possibly you will be 
able to learn which. If it was one, I should feel 
anxious for your safety with such a man. If the 
other,” he added, in French, with the dry, satiric 
sound to his words, “it is of no consequence.” 

“Ah, but what? But what?” she asked. 

“It was not an accident; it was deliberate,” he 
said. “You know I have a rather intimate famili- 
arity with mechanics. The wires of the battery were 
cut. It would have been simple for me to renew 
them, but if the damage were intentional you were 
better with me than with such a chauffeur.” 

She flushed quite to the roots of her dark hair, still 
damp and gleaming; but he was not then gazing at 
her, having turned to re-enter his car. 



CHAPTER IV 


F or the greater part, Harding’s work in Paris 
was finished and he was spending an evening 
at the theatre. In a box with one of the leading 
figures of the French capital, he was a rather listless 
follower of the farce at which his companion laughed 
frequently and heartily. 

“You do not care for the play?” asked Monsieur 
Cadron, after a ludicrous scene which he had greeted 
with enthusiastic approval, but which had not chased 
the somewhat absent look from the American’s face. 

“Since I must leave you before it is finished,” re- 
plied Harding, “I have been unable to hold my at- 
tention on it. It is a trait of which I am not proud 
— lack of interest in fragments of anything, except,” 
he added, with a smile, “of entertaining conversa- 
tion.” 

His explanation and apology were not entirely 
frank. He might have felt and shown a mild sym- 
pathy with the comedians if he had not caught sight 
of some one who reminded him of Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant. Accompanied by a woman, she had entered 
another box opposite them before the curtain rose, 
standing clear to his observation for no longer than 
the moment it took to remove her wrap, her back 
turned to the house. Immediately she had taken a 
seat withdrawn behind the curtains. 

At his first glimpse of the slender form his face 
had lighted; but he was not again favored with a 
39 


The Princess Olga 

view of the young woman or with so much as an as- 
surance of her presence. Through the opening act 
he held his gaze across the way in the possibility 
that his vigilance might be rewarded with the cer- 
tain knowledge that the person either was or was 
not Mademoiselle Vaillant; but, from the first to the 
time of his leaving his host, his eyes sought .a second 
view in vain. Of her companion there was not more 
to be observed than her shoulder, stout and grace- 
less, like that of Madame Krag. 

In the intermission he strolled the circle behind 
the boxes with Monsieur Cadron ; but if he had hoped 
to see more from that vantage-point he was disap- 
pointed; the plush before the door which excited his 
curiosity was tightly drawn. He made no further 
inspection from that side. 

Returning to their own seats, he had the uncom- 
fortable sensation of realizing that in his absence 
the hangings across the way had been so arranged as 
possibly to permit the occupants to scan others with- 
out themselves being seen. He had no doubt now 
that Mademoiselle Vaillant was there; he determined 
to make a formal visit on her party at the second 
falling of the curtain. This was not to be, however, 
for, with the next interruption of the play. Monsieur 
Cadron engaged him in earnest conversation on a sub- 
ject which he could not avoid, since the French banker 
was giving him information relating to, as it was un- 
derstood by him, his business trip. With both the 
volubility and the earnestness of the Frenchman 
who is absorbed in the importance of an affair, he 
ran on until the stage was alive again with the com- 
pany of merry-makers. Even then he leaned tow- 
ards Harding for a few minutes, whispering impres- 
sively some final argument. As the banker laid his 
40 


The Princess Olga 

hand, in an excess of urging, on the other’s arm, 
Harding discerned a quick, possibly a violent, dis- 
turbance of the still-watched curtains, as if some one 
there were moved with surprise or alarm. 

Another scene was closing, and Harding, having 
glanced at his watch, prepared to take his farewell. 
He was in the act of shaking hands when there en- 
tered a man, young, dark, and about whose appear- 
ance there seemed to be something familiar. The 
banker introduced the new-comer as his Highness, 
Prince George of Crevonia. Harding’s eager glance 
at the screened box opposite betrayed his thought 
that there was sufficient time for him to make a 
hasty call before hurrying to his other engagement, 
if he could escape immediately. He must stay, how- 
ever, to exchange the ordinary formalities of a first 
acquaintanceship made under such auspices; and by 
the buttoning of his coat he indicated that he defi- 
nitely abandoned whatever plan he had with refer- 
ence to those behind the artfully arranged curtains. 
In a few moments he was making his way to the 
outer corridor. 

In the long' entrance-hall, as he advanced towards 
the street, he heard a whisper at his ear, warning 
him not to attract observation by turning or speak- 
ing, and of a sudden there stole over him a delightful 
sense of the presence of Mademoiselle Vaillant. 

“When you go out, turn to the right,” her low 
voice cautioned, “and wait at the next street corner, 
where my carriage will draw up to the curb.” 

He did not look around; he knew that she was 
gone; the sensation floated away as if of her visible 
presence. 

On the sidewalk he settled his coat collar more to 
his liking and ambled slowly to the right. At the 

41 


The Princess Olga 

corner he heard wheels behind; in the next moment 
they stopped at his side, the door of the carriage was 
thrown open, and without hesitation he seated him- 
self, facing to the rear, where sat General Krag, alone. 

Already they were moving swiftly along the pave- 
ment. Harding gave a little ejaculation of protest, 
and then, remembering that the other spoke neither 
English nor French, laughed dryly. He took out 
his watch and looked at it, waving his hand warn- 
ingly to indicate that he had little time. The elder 
man pointed a finger to its face, at five minutes later 
than the present hour. 

“Mademoiselle Vaillant,” he said. 

To make sure that his meaning was understood, 
he held up five fingers, repeating impressively in his 
guttural, “Mademoiselle Vaillant.” 

Harding scanned his face with a scrutiny in which 
there was something hard as well as searching. The 
old eyes before him were honest and earnest. 

“I will test the five minutes,” said the American; 
but his vis-a-vis made a signal to inform him that he 
did not understand. Harding now held up four 
fingers, and the white head nodded a vigorous con- 
firmation that he comprehended the sign — four min- 
utes more. The younger man settled back in his 
seat, smiling his appreciation of the droll situation 
until, at the promised time, the carriage stopped. 
They were in a side street, with no indication of a 
second vehicle or of other persons. 

“Mademoiselle Vaillant?” demanded Harding, 
sharply. 

The old man pointed to a door, but the American 
shook his head with a firm, convincing motion, again 
seeking his watch. At the significance of the sign, 
attesting that Harding had a further and imperative 

42 


The Princess Olga, 

engagement, General Krag, without hesitation, ran 
within, reappearing quickly with Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant, and the two entered the carriage. 

She was breathing fast, her color showing vividly 
under the street lights, her small hand, ungloved and 
white, shaking visibly from some strong emotion. 
For a time she did not trust her lips to speak. Then 
her first words were to ask him in which direction he 
wished to be driven. 

A derisive smile crossed his face. 

“I might repay in the coin of fashion,” he replied, 
“and ask to be set down at a cab-stand. But if you 
will be good enough to carry me to the station, where 
I may board the train for Berlin, I can manage 
without calling at my hotel, since I have already 
taken the precaution to send my trunks and hand- 
bag to the railroad.” 

She had no knowledge of a train connection at 
that hour for the German capital. Manifestly, how- 
ever, it was possible that he might be travelling to 
some stopping-off place as a part of his journey, or 
that he might not be going to Berlin at all. What- 
ever her thoughts on the subject, his words did not 
lessen her agitation, and her slim form trembled re- 
peatedly. 

“I am sorry,” he said, leaning forward, with an 
earnestness of countenance and manner that was un- 
feigned, “I am forced to make this interview of so 
much inconvenience to you. I have a pressing mat- 
ter awaiting me in Berlin, and I am rather rigorous 
about keeping such engagements — on business af- 
fairs.” 

He spoke slowly, as if he were fully conscious that 
he was repeating what she knew very well; he was 
merely giving her the opportunity to begin. 

43 


The Princess Olga 

“You might not have had this annoyance,” he 
smiled, “if I had succeeded in seeing you this even- 
ing when I tried. I called at your box on the mere 
chance that a half -glimpse of you was not mistaken. 
You were not at home — as usual. Till we reach the 
station,” he added, “I am at your service.” 

“If you are going away in so short a time — in 
these few moments,” she said, hurriedly, trying, as 
she spoke, to restrain her excitement, “I cannot tell 
you what I wished to have you know — what I hoped 
you might care to know. Perhaps I shall not have 
another opportunity. I ask you to let me say now 
that I have seen you with — oh!” she cried, breath- 
lessly, “it has disturbed me more than I realized; it 
distresses me, as you can see,” she murmured, with a 
faint smile. 

“You have seen me with — ?” he inquired. 

“With an enemy,” she declared. 

“I could not believe that,” he returned, thought- 
fully. 

“You do not doubt me?” she exclaimed. 

“That you could have an enemy in the world,” he 
said, with confidence. 

She made a little, wild gesture against such com- 
pliments at such a time; then, looking at his grave 
face, saw that he was not exchanging flippancies. 

“I hoped you would wish to know,” she repeated. 

“Most assuredly,” he declared, leaning still far- 
ther forward. 

“But he is our enemy,” she averred, “one of the 
authors of our woe. I wish you to know,” she add- 
ed, clasping her hands and gazing into his face with 
appeal. 

She turned to General Krag, speaking to him in 
his language, and hurriedly, as she never ceased to 
‘ 44 


The Princess Olga 

do, and the old man added his gesture of affirmation 
to her words. 

“But,” said Harding, “what is it yoja would have 
me know — that your enemy is the young gentleman 
whom I met this evening in the box of a friend?” 

“No, no,” she murmured, “not the younger one; 
I care nothing for him — the other. He is our enemy 
— the enemy,” she added, with passionate accent, 
“of all our interests — General Krag here, and those 
he represents — all, all,” she repeated, with an in- 
tensity of despair. 

When she had denied concern as to the young 
visitor to the box of the banker, Harding had given 
a start of surprise. He had been prepared to hear of 
him. But her accusation, spoken with bitterness, 
rather than with fear, against the banker, brought to 
his face a puzzled expression which was clearly re- 
vealed to her. 

“But, Mademoiselle Vaillant,” he said, earnestly, 
“I do not understand. You are not at all concerned 
with the younger man, whom I do not know. The 
older I know no better. I met him for the first time 
in my life this evening. Leaving a friend to make 
ready for my little trip, this gentleman proffered his 
carriage to my hotel. On the way I mentioned 
where I was going. He invited me to kill the two 
hours between dinner and train-time in his box, if I 
choose. I did not know your address,” he added, 
with a smile only half humorous. “I took him at 
his word. Now you must tell me of him. I know 
nothing of him — save that he is of the financial 
world.” 

Her eyes had opened wide. 

“You do not know him?” she murmured. 

“Not in the least,” he declared. “I never saw 
45 


■4 


The Princess Olga 

him until to-night. It is for you to enlighten me. 
The time is brief.” 

But she glanced in bewilderment from him to 
General Krag, then out the window as if to see how 
much farther there was of the drive. She drew a 
quick breath. 

“Some other time I will tell you,” she said, in a 
tone she could not free from confusion. 

“Mademoiselle,” he avowed, “you leave me non- 
plussed. You warn me against an enemy. I am 
deeply interested.” He frowned, with the line down 
his forehead between his eyebrows — clearly it was in 
response to the connection he had surmised between 
the young prince and her troubles. He continued 
to wear the look of a man jealous or otherwise deeply 
disturbed, though he would not confess his feeling. 
“You tell me not to give a thought of him. I ask 
you of the other, knowing no more of him — and you 
inform me that this, too, is of no moment. I am 
greatly puzzled.” 

Nevertheless, he showed relief, rather for the elimi- 
nation of the prince from the problem than for the 
sudden change of her manner as to the banker, if 
one might judge by his face — the face of a man who 
had his weakness, perhaps, in a fear of the attraction 
which a rival might possess to gain the notice of a 
woman. 

“It was nothing. I do not often become excited,” 
she smiled, faintly. “It startled me to see you with 
one whom General Krag does not like — from whom 
he has suffered wrong. I am afraid I presumed too 
much on our short friendship. Perhaps,” she added, 
glancing nervously ©ut to see if they were not near 
the station, “your having rescued us once from our 
misfortune on the road, I was moved to expect you 
46 


The Princess Olga 

to rescue us from all dilemmas — dilemmas; nothing 
more,” she smiled. 

Her face brightened, for they were under the glar- 
ing lights of the station entrance. 

“You are not vexed that I was so foolish?” she 
asked. 

“I am puzzled, mademoiselle,” he answered, with 
candor; he did not explain that he was relieved. “I 
shall be getting down now.” 

Outside, with the lights shining full on the two in 
the carriage, his back to the dazzling brilliance, he 
could see every change of expression on their feat- 
ures. General Krag was stolid. Undoubtedly, he 
was ignorant of the turn which their conversation 
had taken. Harding felt that if he had known all 
there would have been no variation from that in- 
scrutable mien. Her color was high, her eye bright 
with both the suppressed excitement and her recoil 
from it. The slight, graceful figure was vibrant with 
some emotion, well checked, yet suggesting triumph. 
It flashed into his mind that he had hitherto been 
too absorbed in other of her qualities to realize the 
spell of her physical charm as it was manifested at 
that moment. As he gazed on her now she was like 
the beauty of the wild flower. He did not lift his 
eyes from her till his hand, unconsciously wandering 
to his watch-pocket, reminded him that he must be 
starting on his journey or he would not begin it till 
the next day. 

It had been in his mind to demand that she make 
at least a part of the situation, and the embarrass- 
ment it caused her, more clear; but he did nothing 
of the kind. He stretched his hand into the carriage 
again, taking hers for another farewell grasp. He 
held it long enough for her to straighten, with a 
47 


The Princess Olga 

queer side glance as of apology to her companion on 
the seat beside her. 

“I did not notice the number, nor even the street,” 
said Harding. “You have not told me.” 

He waited for her to reply, but she ignored the re- 
quest. 

“The address,” he said, slowly; but her eyes — and 
they were faintly warning, not appealing — denied 
him. There was a bustle around and a quickened 
movement of the ingoing passengers to make sure 
that they should not be late. 

“You have not given me the address,” he repeated. 

“Good-night,” she called, lightly; and then she 
spoke to General Krag in his tongue, evidently ask- 
ing him to direct their driver to start, for the carriage 
began to move. There was a natural note of raillery 
in her parting words: “We meet so often without 
prearrangement, perhaps we shall see each other 
agaiii.” 

“ I shall make sure that we do,” he called to her, in 
the voice of calm confidence. 

He stood gazing after the carriage till it passed 
into a shadow. 

“She was very glad to learn that I did not know 
what she thought I knew,” he mused,, as he turned 
his steps towards the train which was to begin his 
journey. “I wonder what it was.” 


CHAPTER V 


I N Berlin, as in London and Paris, Harding had 
time for nothing but business, repeating his for- 
mer routine of meetings, conferences, and reports, 
which he drew up at times when others were seeking 
amusement or were abed. As before, men listened 
to him with close, voiceless attention, and, when he 
had left them, exchanged the comprehensive glances 
of astonishment over one who moved so quietly and 
spoke so calmly, yet reached his conclusions unerr- 
ingly, covering his work extensively and thoroughly 
in a way seeming to assure the attainment of his 
ultimate aim. 

After a second consultation in formal assembly of 
some half-dozen grave-faced men, all more than fifty, 
Herr Schwartzroth expressed the general opinion 
when he said, with a smile of satisfaction, the Ameri- 
can having departed with an armful of papers: 
“After all, there is never anything for us to do but 
to assent and officially ratify. Herr Harding is suf- 
ficient unto us all. We are busy men; he has his 
programme to perfect, and then carry out; when he 
has done so, we shall simply assent ajjid ratify. Why 
do we hold these meetings ? He is all ; we are noth- 
ing. And it is well.” 

But the banker’s remarks were suggested more as 
a pleasantry than to be adopted. Harding was com- 
petent to perform his commission without advice or 
49 


The Princess Olga 

interference ; before he unfolded the development of 
his plans each day he was assured of their approval. 
But none of them would have missed playing his 
part in the negotiations — it was an education in the 
art of accomplishing things; it was a professional de- 
light to business senses, acutely sensitive to flaws in 
methods, warmly responsive to fine workmanship. 

The formal sessions and consultations continued. 

Three days after his arrival Harding imagined that 
he had seen Mademoiselle Vaillant. Walking to keep 
an appointment at which he was due in half an hour, 
he noticed a woman’s figure, slight like hers, with 
her elastic yet dignified carriage, move towards the 
edge of the sidewalk and hail a passing cab. She 
had been approaching him, and, in the act of stop- 
ping and turning to enter the vehicle, took away his 
opportunity to catch sight of her face. At the time 
he had no doubt it was she. He hesitated for an in- 
stant, then, with the intention of following hers to 
make sure if his eyes had deceived him, summoned 
another cab for himself. In the midst of giving his 
directions to the driver, his glance fell on a clock in 
a near-by steeple, and he paused, shrugging his 
shoulders. He changed his directions so that the 
cab should take him to his engagement. 

It was so strongly in his mind that the young 
woman whom he had observed was Mademoiselle 
Vaillant, that throughout that and part of the next 
day he entertained the purpose of making some ef- 
fort to confirm his belief. Yet an incident of the fol- 
lowing afternoon convinced him that he had been 
mistaken. Fresh from the mail, bearing Paris post- 
marks of the previous day, came a letter directly 
from France. When he took it in his hand he knew 

50 


The Princess Olga 


that it was hers, though he was not familiar with her 
writing; for there came to him that sense of her 
presence as on the evening when she had overtaken 
him in the theatre entrance and the low voice had 
whispered in his ear from behind. The message was 
not signed, but the contents were sufficient to iden- 
tify the sender beyond question, if he had doubts, 
and he had none. It was in French, with a native 
idiom to make it more appealing to him than the 
translation conveys: 

“If monsieur should chance to meet again one who 
is distasteful, perhaps he would not inform that per- 
son of his acquaintance with one who prefers to re- 
main no one.” 

Somehow the words sent a flush running over his 
cheek. In what was at first a vague suggestion, he 
caught the notion that there had been disagreeable 
devotion from Cadron, to escape which she had dis- 
appeared from some previous path of life, leaving 
the disfavored suitor in ignorance not only of her 
movements but of her very existence. He had not 
studied Cadron in their brief intercourse ; but now he 
recalled, or fancied that he did, a certain coarseness 
of manner and grossness of viewpoint towards some 
of the women in the play. His thought that Mad- 
emoiselle Vaillant might have been subjected to such 
attentions increased the sting on his cheek. Until 
then a stranger would not have surmised that his 
clean, muscled jaw could assume so ugly a look. 

With grave lines still on his face, he folded the 
letter and placed it in his pocket as he pondered the 
possibilities of this situation and its probable bearing 
on the attitude of Mademoiselle Vaillant when her 
carriage had driven him to the station. 

In the course of his reflections over her message 

51 


The Princess Olga 

his judgment took a reconsideration of his impres- 
sion that he had seen her in the streets of Berlin. 
This thought was not to be longer countenanced. 
She had mailed her letter on the day previous. The 
dates set forth by the post-marks were ample testi- 
mony that she had been despatching her request 
from Paris within a few hours of the time when he 
supposed he had seen her in Berlin. 

He was both glad and sorry to find such convinc- 
ing evidence that she could not have been in Berlin 
when he was half sure he had all but met her face to 
face. If he was deprived of the coveted chance to 
happen on her again he had a bit of her handwriting 
— a suggestion of what he twisted into her thought- 
fulness for him at the same time that she was plan- 
ning to conceal her return to Paris from the dis- 
covery of one whom she did not wish to know of the 
fact. She might have, he promised himself, reflected 
on the unsatisfactory frame of mind in which their 
last conversation had left him. She had taken the 
trouble to go to the Paris house of Locke, Cromwell 
& Co. to obtain the name of his hotel in Berlin, and 
had sent the letter, both to serve her purpose of 
secrecy and to ease his mind. Somehow it did ease 
it to be further in her confidence, while giving him a 
queer, rasping feeling of jealous contempt for and 
anger against the banker, in whose box he had sat, 
bored with all that was going on around him except 
the wavering of the curtains opposite their position. 

The idea of her presence in Berlin dismissed from 
his mind, he drove ahead his business with the Ger- 
mans. Owing to their fondness for going into 
minute details, though they recognized that in his 
case this was unnecessary, they delayed his stay 
longer than his similar stops in London and Paris; 

52 


The Princess Olga 

much longer than he had calculated in the casting of 
his general arrangements. At the close he grew im- 
patient enough to hint that, since there was little 
left to do but pass upon his estimates and specifica- 
tions, he might move ahead to his next stage. There 
was, in fact, only the step now of formulating their 
conventional resolutions of thanks and approval in 
the way affected by the German custom; but his 
suggestion that these documents might be forwarded 
to him by mail aroused such horror among the ad- 
miring bankers that he was constrained to postpone 
his going till the last comma had been marked and 
the last paper properly tied with ribbon. 

In those days, with nothing in the way of creation 
for his brain and hand, he was so active in striving 
to expedite what would not quicken its pace that 
one might not judge how near to his departure he 
was. Going to his hotel one evening, however, his 
countenance reflecting a hearty satisfaction, he an- 
nounced to the manager that he should be giving up 
his rooms in the morning, and he left directions as to 
his trunks, which he desired to be brought down that 
night. 

While he discussed the necessary details of his 
leave-taking, a stranger stood at his elbow, waiting, 
as Harding supposed, his turn for attention from the 
manager. When the American had finished, how- 
ever, the other turned to him with a smile, speaking 
in French. 

“Pardon me,” he said. “ I have just heard you ad- 
dressed as Monsieur Harding. It is my good-fortune, 
if I have the pleasure of appearing before Monsieur 
Harding, the famous American engineer, to meet one 
to whom I had expected to have the honor to pre- 
sent myself in Paris. I have a letter of introduc- 
53 


The Princess Olga 

tion to monsieur. I anticipate my expectations by 
offering it now — I am Monsieur Devereiix.” 

The letter was somewhat perfunctory, having been 
given by a casual acquaintance whom Harding had 
met in London. Nevertheless, he was cordial. 

“I am desirous,” said Monsieur Devereux, “if it is 
agreeable to Monsieur Harding, to be so lucky as to 
become attached to his engineering staff in some re- 
sponsible capacity.” 

“Now,” answered the American, frankly, “let us 
take seats and see what we can do.” 

Devereux was of pleasing aspect, and the Ameri- 
can had a good opinion of French engineers in gen- 
eral. Furthermore, he prized his relationship with 
the other Frenchman, who had been not only a valu- 
able professional associate, but of indirect service in 
Harding’s meeting with Mademoiselle Vaillant, not to 
speak of his business trip. 

After a few questions and some chat of a technical 
nature, he stated the situation as it shaped itself. 

“There is not a brilliant opportunity with my 
forces at present. If you think you would like to 
try your hand with us, I dare say I could arrange 
something, after looking over the ground at home.” 

“Monsieur goes home soon, then?” asked the other. 

That question was not answered. 

“Have you been in- the United States?” asked 
Harding. 

“Unfortunately, I have,” was the response. “I 
have had some unpleasantness there that would 
make me hope that perhaps monsieur could offer 
me something in this world — if he is doing more 
here?” 

“My business here,” replied Harding, “is of the 
briefest and not of great importance. Such as is 
54 


The Princess Olga 

left of it — not a great deal at the start — would not 
require the assistance of any one. If you desire to 
resume your experience in the United States I shall 
give the subject consideration, and, having looked 
the ground over, as I said, write you what is the 
prospect.” 

“Monsieur goes home soon, then?” repeated the 
other. 

“Not immediately,” answered Harding. “I hope 
the return will not be far distant. If you do not 
care to wait, or if it seemed not advantageous to 
commit yourself on the uncertainty, I should say to 
you that it would not be necessary for you to feel 
that there was an understanding with me. If, in the 
meanwhile, you find anything to your liking, or if 
you decide against America, I shall regard that you 
are not bound to consider what I may offer, if any- 
thing. I shall have felt pleasure in attempting to 
serve our friend from whom you have brought the 
letter, and, after a fashion, in paying a tribute to 
one of your own countrymen who is with me at 
home and deeply esteemed by me.” 

“You are most kind,” said the Frenchman; “and 
if I do not have the honor to see you again before 
your return to the United States, I shall await word 
from you there.” 

“In the understanding I have mentioned,” agreed 
Harding. 

“And now,” declared Devereux, noting the time, 
“I must despatch myself to a dinner engagement, 
for which I shall be none too early. Let me thank 
you again.” 

Harding gave him an American and Western hand- 
shake, and went in search of his own dinner before 
packing. 


55 


The Princess Olga. 

The French engineer, however, did not hasten 
away to don evening clothes; nor, dressed as he was, 
did he hurry to an informal dining. He went to a 
telegraph office, spent one hour over a private code- 
book, and sent a long message by wire to Paris. 


CHAPTER VI 


W ITHIN a short time of his reaching Paris, Har- 
ding must have completed what new business 
had drawn him there on a return flight, for on the 
next evening of his arrival he was idling away early 
and late hours. 

The city, which loves entertainment under brill- 
iant lights, was making much of a new resort, open- 
ed, as contantly occurs in the gayest of capitals, to 
be a sensation for a while and a permanent routine 
through the years. The Garden of the Nations, as is 
nearly everything in Paris, was for the world ; it was 
neither so wanton as others famous over two conti- 
nents, nor so dull as to pall on jaded appetites. The 
half-world came late; the better level of humanity 
earlier. There were real gardens — something not 
always accompanying the name — and they were 
very beautiful, with here a wealth of illumination, 
but there shaded recesses where only a faint glow 
revealed strolling merry-makers. In the gardens, 
nearer the cafd, the lights, and the music, were tables 
where groups held vivacious conversation, and with 
careless laughter drank to the increase of their merri- 
ment. Inside were dance-halls, with bare floors till 
after midnight. Here the traditional mask might be 
worn — and, indeed, most of those who frequented 
the shining floors did so — but one might leave it off, 
as the two extremes of the indifferent or the more 
boisterous revellers were likely to do. 

57 


The Princess Olga 

After the multitude had begun to flow towards the 
halls, where now the violins called their high notes 
to those who wished to dance, Harding sat alone in 
the gardens taking Scotch and soda. There came to 
him a young man who resembled the Prince George 
he had met in the theatre, and yet, like that other, 
reminded him of still some one else. The stranger 
had been drinking enough for the sparkle of his 
black eye to be unnatural; his tie was slightly, only 
slightly, awry, as if from slackness rather than reck- 
lessness. He had a jovial laugh, which had sounded 
in Harding’s ears often during the last hour, which 
was interrupting his words as he addressed the 
American. 

“If monsieur has no objection?” he said, in Eng- 
lish, his hand on the back of a chair at Harding’s table. 

“Oh, not at all. I seem to remember your face,” 
Harding answered, cordially. “Probably we have 
met — perhaps similarly to this occasion.” 

“I don’t think so,” replied the new-comer; “but I 
know of Mr. Harding, the American engineer, and I 
am resolved to give myself the pleasure of a personal 
acquaintance.” 

“I am Mr. Harding, and I am glad to know you 
in this pleasant way,” smiled Harding. 

“And in Paris,” laughed the other, “I am the 
Count of Sord. Call me that out loud. In fact, I 
am incognito; but everybody who cares a rap knows 
that I am Prince Alexander.” 

“Will your Highness join me in Scotch, or make 
another choice?” smiled Harding. 

The self-introduced friend eyed the whiskey with- 
out enthusiasm. 

“Prince Alexander of Crevonia,” he said. “If 
you don’t mind, I will continue on the wine.” 

S8 


The Princess Olga 

“I had the pleasure of meeting another of your 
house — Prince George,” said Harding. 

“The black sheep,” laughed the other. “I mean 
black in the books of the bankers, as we all well 
might be.” 

He spoke with so little resentment towards the 
bankers, so indifferent a rebuke to his cousin that 
Harding could not refrain from joining his heedless 
laugh. 

“We are a bit of a sore point with the whole fra- 
ternity,” he added, his excellent English lending 
flavor to his good -nature. “But the trouble with 
George is he never stands a shot to pay. If enough 
of us die — there are four of us, all cousins — there is 
a chance for the lenders to get back the debts of 
each — except George,” he chuckled. “They have no 
hope in him. The powers — the financial powers” — 
he sank his voice in spite of his amiable abandon — 
“will have none of poor George. If the whole tribe 
should be carried off by the small-pox, the powers 
would not permit his accession. He is not even last 
on the list — he isn’t on it at all. Even the Princess 
Olga would fare better; and she would have no 
standing at all. Her branch has been out of it since 
before my grandfather’s time. You think this is a 
strange way for a prince to talk to a stranger ? Well, 
you must remember it is a prince of Crevonia; and, 
confidentially, as between a Crevonian prince and an 
American of the reputation of yourself, it is a good 
deal of a joke.” 

Harding was somewhat at sea as to how he should 
fall in with a declaration of that sort, and held his 
peace. 

“I am first in line; I am to take up the royal 
burden,” Alexander ran on, refilling his glass en- 
59 


The Princess Olga 

tirely over the rim. “Then I am going to settle 
down.” 

He looked the American steadily in the eye, 
though his finger was marking time in the air. 

“When I do,” he said, “there are going to be 
some changes — some reforms. The rest is all a joke, 
but not this. The bankers have so decreed.” 

He leaned forward, to have his lips nearer the 
other’s ear, and, to Harding’s surprise, spoke now in 
a low whisper, “Paris is chock full of spies, and 
more than half of them are busy with the affairs of 
Crevonia.” 

“A populous profession here?” laughed Harding. 

“There are more spies engaged on this thing than 
the total population of our kingdom,” his Highness 
asserted, waving his hand to indicate expansiveness, 
and tipping over a glass. 

He sat back in his chair again, and called out, 
loudly: “I should be willing to bet not less than a 
dozen spies are watching us now; and they are from 
all the nations, more or less, of Europe. They are 
men and women, old and young. I don’t mind — 
let’s go in and dance,” he said. 

“I don’t dance,” smiled Harding. “If my lack of 
the accomplishment parts us, it will be the first time 
that I have had occasion to regret my failing. I 
haven’t danced since I left the academy, and that 
was too many years ago to remember.” 

“West Point!” ejaculated the Prince, in delight. 

Harding smiled his deprecation. 

“It was a good while ago,” he said. 

Alexander stretched an arm across the table and 
touched his companion’s hand impressively. 

“If I were a West Point man,” he muttered; “if I 
had the service of a West Point man — ” His face 
6o 


The Princess Olga 

was tinged with a different light from that of the 
wine. Then he whispered, in so low a tone that 
Harding was no more than able to catch his words, 
“Now, if you cared to have some sport — ?” 

The American shook his head slowly, an amused 
expression spreading on his face. 

“I am in earnest,” Alexander avowed, less guard- 
edly. “There will be a pretty how-to-do when I 
step up. There always is in Crevonia when we have 
a succession. The powers don’t care, either the 
bankers or the nations. It is all one to them, how- 
ever much we cut one another’s throats, so long as 
the interest is paid and the river stays out of the 
hands of — hush!” he added. “That is delicate 
ground, even if one seldom has his tongue in harness.” 

He glanced around at the throngs and came back 
to his subject. 

“But when I step up,” he whispered, “there is go- 
ing to be a halt, because the kingdom can’t stand 
any more spending. The collateral is getting shaky. 
We have got to do something to guarantee the in- 
terest. Oh, I am ready,” he declared, “to take any 
medicine they offer me ; that is my r61e — I am the suc- 
cession. But we shall have a lively time in Crevonia.” 

He had a remarkable faculty of very nearly up- 
setting his boat and then pulling his oar through the 
water with even, steady blade- work. 

“If I had a man like you — I have got to have 
somebody,” he continued. “I don’t know whom 
they will give me; it would suit me more than I can 
say. Would anything in the world — anything that 
would be in my power — induce you to listen to a 
proposal from me?” 

“My engagements are full,” smiled Harding. 

“You would really enjoy it,” promised the Prince, 
s 6i 


The Princess Olga 

rather loudly. “Oh, but it would interest the spies! 
Let’s go and dance,” he repeated, forgetting Har- 
ding’s previous answer. 

But the American was no longer amused with the 
unusual spirits of the Prince; he had caught sight of 
some one at whom his veins had thrilled. It was a 
slim figure, masked, and wearing a Spanish scarf, 
skilfully twined around her slender neck so that even 
her throat was disguised, though he could see its 
milk-white gleam through the black folds. She 
stood some distance from their table, her carriage 
revealing, though perhaps only to him, an intensity 
of suppressed excitement, her eyes appearing, 
through the slits of the mask, to be half-lidded in 
that manner which he could not mistake. In her 
direction he gave a quick little nod, imperceptible 
to any one not watching for it, and took out some 
money to pay his score. 

“I am very sorry that I don’t dance,” he said, not 
intimating that this remark was a repetition. “ While 
you are dancing I shall stretch my legs with a little 
walk.” 

The slight figure of the scarf had moved on slowly, 
but Harding did not hurry. 

“I am really delighted to have had your com- 
pany,” he said to the Prince; “and such ripping good 
English I have not heard outside of London.” 

“I went to school there,” returned Alexander’s 
rollicking voice. “Best time I ever had in my life. 
If ever you happen in Crevonia in my time, come to 
see me — don’t fail. I am off for a romp at dancing. 
Be sure to call.” 

“I certainly shall,” answered the American, with 
a vigorous hand -clasp, and he followed deliberately 
after the Spanish scarf. 


62 


The Princess Olga, 

“If the senorita is not engaged,” he said, quietly, 
at the elbow of the slender masker, “though I do 
not dance.” 

She did not answer him, but took his arm quickly, 
nervously, shivering through her light frame as her 
hand touched his sleeve. 

“ In English?” he asked. 

“No, no,” she breathed — “French.” 

He waited for her to begin, but she seemed to be 
able to do no more than flutter on his arm in a filmy 
way that made him feel no one else could suspect her 
agitation. 

Then, to give her more time to recover herself, he 
said, “Shall we promenade with the world?” 

“Yes, yes,” she whispered. 

Again there was a pause, her heart beating so close 
to his sleeve that his eyes must seek hers through 
the slits in the mask. 

“This is strange to mademoiselle,” he said, with a 
protecting, reassuring note in his voice. 

At the words, recalling their meeting in New York, 
and, still further, justifying her attendance in the 
present place, whatever the cause, he saw tears of 
gratitude gleam in the dark lights behind the silken 
shield over her face. 

“Monsieur is very kind,” she murmured, fluttering 
in that way; and he pressed her arm more tightly 
under his, till her warm, sweet breath stole across 
his cheek as she looked her thanks at him for his faith. 

“Shall we still march with the others?” he asked. 

“Still,” she palpitated, in the low tone. 

“Yet we are seeing nothing that interests mad- 
emoiselle,” he avowed, quietly. 

“ But it is for her to do — till she knows how to say 
what is on her lips,” she answered, in hushed tones. 

63 


The Princess Olga, 

They were flushing, slightly panting lips, just at 
the lower edge of the silken mask, which wavered as 
if before a soft breeze, warming all that it touched. 

“Mademoiselle is ready?” he asked. 

“ Not yet,” she protested, in the murmur. “ Mean- 
while, who was the gentleman who entertained mon- 
sieur at the table?” 

“He said he was a prince — a prince of Crevonia,” 
answered Harding, frankly; and at his words he felt 
the former quiver along the supple body leaning 
against his shoulder. 

“He seemed gay — this friend of monsieur.” ■ 

“He was illustrating the proverb of wine and the 
truth — if it was the truth; there was little doubt 
about the wine,” he laughed. 

“The gentleman was confidential?” 

“Intimately — dangerously so.” 

“He is a real prince?” 

“So the wine said, if it did not lie.” 

“ You believe him ?” 

“Assuredly; he gave every indication of being 
foolishly ffank and trusting — perhaps that is the 
way with modern princes. I have had little experi- 
ence with them. This is my second .view of one — 
each time you have been the witness of the advent- 
ure.” 

“What do they seem like?” 

“Like a bottle-^first bubbling, then empty.” 

“You were interested?” 

“Quite. There was something about the fellow^ I 
liked.” 

“You speak of a prince as fellow.” She laughed 
with the first note of composure he had heard from 
her since they had begun to follow the never-end- 
ing procession around the edge of the hall. “In 
64 


The Princeis Olga 

the world of such they take themselves more seri- 
ously.” 

“Not this one,” he returned. “He was what 
American slang would call easy with himself.” 

“ He acted, in his intimate confidences, if one might 
judge by his empressement, as if he were an old friend 
of monsieur.” 

“He was rather confidential, considered that it 
was to a stranger. He told me all about himself, 
and intrusted some of his plans to me.” 

“He was carried away by his exhilaration — ^he was 
influenced by his evening of merriment?” 

“I could not be sure. Some of the things he said 
were entirely sane and sober — from his point of 
view.” 

“For example — ” 

“ He admitted he had a hard row — a difficult prob- 
lem ahead of him. He wished he had one to assist 
him on whom he could rely. He preferred an 
American, a West - Pointer. He did me the honor 
to invite me to come to his relief. I thought he was 
joking. He made me understand he was very much 
in earnest. I think I believed him. Of course, it 
was not to be thought of.” 

“It was too absurd,” she declared, with the old 
ring of ease and intelligence. 

“It was not in my line — as I told him. I have 
other engagements.” 

“Where there are no princes to be rescued,” she 
sparkled. “Happy country! Lucky people!” 

“To an American,” he laughed, “they seem not 
worth rescuing,” 

“None?” she demanded. 

“Not as we regard them generally — not as I have 
beheld two examples at short range.” 

65 


The Piincess Olga 

“If monsieur had se3n more,” she suggested. 

“He is not likely to see many; he is a somewhat 
busy man. Princes do not flock where our kind 
works.” 

She ran abruptly into English, speaking in a very 
low tone. 

“I should think,” she said, “there might be some- 
thing in a suggestion of that sort to appeal to a man 
like you.” 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“Not for such princes as I have seen,” he declared, 
in French. 

“But for some other — perhaps, since it is the way 
of Americans — a princess?” she ridiculed. 

“Least of all a princess — least of all a Princess 
Olga, as he let me into his confidence,” laughed 
Harding. “His Highness — ” 

“Hush!” she breathed, with a sharp accent in the 
whisper; for Prince Alexander was before them, 
smiling at his American friend, bowing to the com- 
panion on his arm. 

“My friends are not dancing,” said the Prince. 
“If Monsieur Harding will forfeit his prize — if the 
senorita has no objection — may I have the honor?” 
he said, quite soberly. “Monsieur Harding does not 
dance,” he added. 

Harding felt the little form which he supported 
grow rigid, yet her eyes were mocking through the 
slits. 

“Mademoiselle is engaged for the evening,” said 
Harding, quietly. “I cannot yield my rights even 
to a claimant so highly esteemed by me.” 

They began to move away, and he fancied he was 
carrying almost her entire weight. A few paces on 
she drew a long breath. 


66 


The Princess Olga 

“Thank you — thank you,” she breathed. 

“For being so selfish?” he derided. 

“Thank you,” she repeated, shivering again. 

“Mademoiselle is tired,” he said, gently. “If it is 
time for her to go home — ” 

“Not yet,” she murmured. “ A few more rounds.” 

He was more than willing. 

“It is my last night in Paris,” he said, carelessly. 
Then he added, gravely, inclining his lips nearer to 
her ear, “When I come to see you again — soon, I 
hope — it will be to ask mademoiselle what — ^what 
she already knows.” 

“You are leaving Paris?” she asked, quickly. 

He drew from his pocket a printed slip — a clipping 
from a newspaper — and handed it to her. It had 
been torn carelessly from the page, the fragment, 
with its uneven edges, extending across two columns. 
Unfolding it, she looked at it, and gave a heavy 
start ; but with a smile he was watching the dancing 
figure of Prince Alexander, who had found a satis- 
factory partner. Her eyes stole a glance at the im- 
perturbable face above her shoulder, then at the 
piece of newspaper, which contained a roughly 
drawn map, with letter -press describing it as the 
future heritage of Alexander. The map appeared as 
shown on following page. 

Unconsciously her trembling fingers turned to the 
reverse side of the fragment, and she saw that here 
was what he had thought would be of interest to 
her, since it was a notice of himself. She read it 
quickly, her eyes shining a brilliant light through 
the slits of the mask: 

“M. Harding, the eminent American engineer, who 
has been sojourning here recently, after his return 
67 


The Princess Olga 

from Berlin, will be entertained at breakfast to- 
morrow by some members of the Bourse, prepara- 
tory to his departure in the evening for London, 
whence, it is understood, he goes immediately to the 



United States. M. Harding has been in negotiation 
with those who have large grants said to be in 
Central America.” 


Inadvertently, perhaps, she tore the clipping to 
bits, holding them in the palm of her hand as they 
walked. 


68 


The Princess Olga 

“Has mademoiselle nothing to say,” he asked, 
“that would console me till my return? She has 
not given me the address.” 

“ I have a friend — Madame Krag — ^waiting for me,” 
she faltered. “Will monsieur take me to her? We 
.shall find our carriage.” 

“If I might assist you to it,” he suggested, with 
the grave yet calmly confident manner. 

“Please do not,” she requested. “Will you leave 
me near that door?” 

At the threshold, which she had indicated, he re- 
peated, “Mademoiselle has not given me the ad- 
dress.” 

“There is none,” she whispered, with a little catch 
in her white throat. “Good-night, monsieur.” She 
slipped back into the room from which he was barred. 


CHAPTER VII 


U SIJAifLY on the nick of time, with nothing to 
spare for all engagements, Harding was early 
for the train which was to bear him on his Calais 
way to London. He passed the time strolling, with 
a deliberately achieved aimlessness, among the sta- 
tion crowds. If, on their outskirts, he saw any one 
whom he recognized, he gave no sign of the dis- 
covery. He was content to continue his walk back 
and forth in the thickest of the throng, until, shortly 
before the hour of departure, he came to a stand at 
a convenient place for boarding his car, when he 
might pass through. It was then, with the hoarse 
breathing of the locomotive sounding over the hum 
of life, that a gamin hastened to him. 

“Monsieur Harding,” he said; “a letter.” 

Harding did not at once receive it from the out- 
stretched hand. 

“I am Monsieur Harding,” he replied. 

“I am instructed to deliver it into your hand at 
the moment of your going,” said the messenger, hold- 
ing forth the missive. Still it was not taken. 

Finally the boy thrust it upon him, saying, “I am 
directed to call to the attention of monsieur the com- 
mand on the envelope.” 

It was in the handwriting of Mademoiselle Vaillant, 
as he knew from her communication received in Berlin. 
The envelope bore the warning, in English and under- 
scored, “ Not to be opened till aboard the train.” 

70 


The Princess Olga 

“Is it right?” asked the boy, ready to go. 

“ Wait,” commanded Harding ; “ the lady has asked 
you to return.” 

“To get my pay, monsieur, for the service.” 

“To carry my answer,” corrected Harding, point- 
ing to the words in English, which the boy could not 
read. 

“If monsieur says so,” assented the messenger. 

Harding took a card from its case, and wrote on it 
in pencil: “I am obeying you; I shall not open it till 
we are off. Meanwhile, I love you. I shall be back 
soon to claim you.” 

Then he hesitated to deliver the card into the 
hand waiting for it. He had no envelope to cover 
his message. The boy could not read it, for, like 
hers, it was in English. But it might not reach her. 
She might be gone. The gamin might throw it 
away, to be read by others. And it was on his card, 
a complete identification. He drew from his pocket 
a glittering gold piece. 

“The lady who is waiting to give you your pay,” 
he said, “expects this answer. You must be quick 
to return here before I pass through to the train, so 
that I, also, may give you your pay for this. Quick,” 
he repeated, showing the gold. 

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed the urchin; “if monsieur 
will give it to me to deliver.” 

“When you have returned,” enjoined Harding, “I 
shall know if you have performed the errand by the 
word you bring back.” 

“Yes, yes,” repeated the eager messenger. 

He seized the bit of pasteboard and darted 
through the crowd, Harding watching him with a 
slow smile. 

The American was standing, almost in the attitude 

71 


The Princess Olga 

of despatching the swift emissary, when the lad re- 
turned, excited and breathless. 

“She has it,” he cried. 

“And what did she do?” asked Harding. 

“The lady had a franc in her hand to give me, 
monsieur, and when I had started to run back to 
you — for my gold, monsieur — she called me. She 
took all the change from her purse and poured it 
into my fist.” 

“And what did she say?” demanded Harding, with 
a thoughtful smile on his face. 

“Nothing, monsieur; the lady said nothing — she 
was weeping. She went away.” 

“You have been a faithful messenger,” said Har- 
ding, gravely; and he dropped not one, but two pieces 
of shining coin into the open palm, which clutched 
them joyously as the boy sped off. 

With the letter still held in his fingers, Harding 
found his place in the compartment. As the train 
gained headway he began to tear the envelope; and 
then, with the edge broken half the distance across, 
he stopped, his eye showing a queer light of deter- 
mined resistance to the gratification of a pleasure, 
postponed by his will, for some subtle purpose of 
later delight. He thrust the letter, unread and un- 
opened, into his pocket, leaning back comfortably 
for reflection during the next few minutes. Then he 
started to look over the papers, following the news 
in their columns slowly and thoughtfully. He read 
on thus until the train slackened and stopped at a 
little village where the express never took up or left 
passengers. But this change of schedule had been 
arranged, for the once, by those in the great world 
of France, who accomplished many other things be- 
yond the ordinary. 


72 


The Princess Olga 

Harding stepped quietly to the door, asked the 
guard if this were a certain place, and coolly de- 
scended to the platform outside. In the next in- 
stant the long mass of cars rolled swiftly away, like 
a coil, and he was standing in the darkness. With 
no word to the solitary agent, he went across the 
road, and stood there in the shadow of a tree, until 
there moved to his side a long motor-car, its low- 
turned lights not concealing the great speed-power 
indicated by the build of the machine. 

“I was to say that you were sent by Monsieur 
Hotel,” remarked Harding, in the even, sure voice. 

“I am under orders to say that monsieur is on 
time,” the chauffeur answered. 

He was a man used to obeying instructions with- 
out words; for, making no further comment, he came 
down from the driver’s seat and began to examine 
the mechanism, in preparation, if necessary, for a 
long run. 

It was then that Harding took the letter, and, 
standing a little in front of the car, that he might 
gain the light from one of the lamps, opened it 
rather slowly. Motionless, he read it: 

“You are leaving France — God bless you. 

“We shall not see each other again. It must be so — 
always. 

“ I would not have done what I have; yet, for the life of 
me, I cannot regret. Remember, do not cherish — 

“ Mme. Vaillant.” 

“Madame!” He read it over again, once, twice. 
“Madame!” There was no mistaking her meaning. 

The chauffeur was waiting; but he saw no change 
of color on the tanned face shown clearly in the 
light. There was no shaking of the hand which 

73 


The Princess Olga 

folded the letter carefully, replaced it in the en- 
velope, and laid it with another in a wallet. When 
Harding spoke his voice was very steady, quite 
natural. 

“It will not rain to-night?” 

“I do not think so, monsieur.” 

“You will drive; I will sit at your side.” 

“As monsieur commands.” 

Harding fetched a cigar from his pocket, and, with 
deliberation, lighted it. He climbed in after the 
other. 

“In any direction,” he said; “and slowly, till we 
are out and beyond the village.” 

“But certainly,” was the response. 

For a quarter of an hour they drove on at varying 
speeds, the chauffeur interpreting his instructions so 
well that they had circled off through the country, 
and then returned to the highway, hard and shining 
white even in the night. 

“Which direction, monsieur?” he asked, regulat- 
ing the oil flow. 

“We are well out?” 

“Several miles, monsieur.” 

“We have been going farther from Paris ?” 

“Circling, monsieur. I await your instructions.” 

“Straight to Paris,” said Harding, quietly. “Be 
there before daylight.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


I N the extreme comer of the great nation which 
hugged little Crevonia from the west lay the 
duchy of Weissburg, scarcely more in extent of ter- 
ritory than its city of the same name; secure from 
all aggression, confirmed in its privileges, because it 
was a part of the giant empire sprawling over that 
part of the continent. It had a population which 
despised its independent neighbor, Crevonia, for a 
barbarian race permitted to exist as a national entity 
for the mere reason that it was not the whim of the 
powerful to dismember and swallow it. 

Weissburg, nevertheless, took much profit from 
what it scorned; for in the petty kingdom, with its 
river lolling to the sea, foreigners held a concession, 
which poured forth valuable woods and precious 
metals to the world — ^not by way of Crevonia, the 
contemptible, but by way of Weissburg, the favored. 

The Concession, called the Forest Island, was, in 
fact, a promontory nearly surrounded by the river, 
in the manner pictured on the map which had 
startled Gordon Harding’s companion in the Garden 
of the Nations at Paris. It lay not ten miles from 
the boundary-line of the duchy, its entrance opening 
on the long, broad road which ran from Weissburg 
across Crevonia to the capital of the kingdom of 
which Alexander, the jovial, was to be the mler by 
the grace of the financial powers, he had told the 
American, as his throne was suffered to exist by the 
75 


The Princess Olga. 

grace of the political powers. Along this highway 
flowed all day, and sometimes at night, a stream of 
wagon traffic, the yield of the forest and the mines 
of the Concession sitting in the arms of the river. 

If, from the holders of the Concession, Crevonia 
took a small rental, to be paid over again as interest 
on the debt owed to the bankers, and if the huge 
profits from the forest and mines swelled the treasure 
of European houses, already fabulously rich, Weiss- 
burg had its very valuable share in the tithes which 
came to the duchy by reason of the ceaseless stream 
of traffic flowing across its limits, instead of being 
transported on the river of Crevonia; for such were 
the terms of the grant, sanctioned by the mighty 
nations, which, for their own good reasons, refrained 
from swallowing the tiny kingdom. 

The people of Weissburg, therefore, being pros- 
perous at the expense of another, and firm in the 
protection of the imperial parent, were happy. They 
had a beautiful little city hanging on the hill-side, 
with streets terraced in steps where they were too 
stfeep for horses to climb; and down below, spread- 
ing on the pleasant plain, villas with flower gardens 
nearer the centre of the capital, and, out beyond, 
lazy farms. 

Because of the Concession, Weissburg was showered 
with money which fell on its brokers, agents, ware- 
houses, hotels, and industries dependent on the Con- 
cession traffic. Because of the relationship of Cre- 
vonia to European politics, Weissburg harbored a 
colony of the class and calling which Prince Alex- 
ander had estimated as more numerous than the 
population of the kingdom over which he was to 
reign. They, too, spread their money freely, as 
seems to be necessary in all secret service of govern- 
76 


The Princess Olga 

ments. Thereby was Weissburg doubly favored in 
the way of golden harvests, reaping while others 
sowed. 

Of the many pretty places fringing the base of the 
higher town — ^white houses, with their closely clipped 
lawns, carefully arranged flower-beds, neatly trimmed 
shrubs — ^it would have been difficult even for a native 
to define whether more benefits came from the Con- 
cession, or from the no less active industry which had 
called forth Prince Alexander’s remarks to Harding 
concerning the prolific tribe of spies. 

However, there were the convincing marks of the 
blessings of free expenditure — the attractive man- 
sions, the clean, well-paved streets, the spotless ter- 
races — ^and the complacent Weissburgers were con- 
tent to enjoy the good things which a bountiful 
Providence poured into their laps, feeling, as people 
in other quarters are likely to do, that no incon- 
siderable credit for the generous gifts of fortune was 
due to their own virtues — ^witness, in contrast, the 
pitiable Crevonians just across the line. 

Strangers happening in that comer of the world 
wondered that the single-track railroad, which con- 
nected Weissburg with the teeming west, and whose 
business was chiefly the freight to and from the Con- 
cession, had not been extended farther along the 
short space between the duchy and the Forest Island 
in Crevonia — wondered until they learned, perhaps, 
that this also was set down in the terms of the grant, 
to suit the purpose of those who provided work and 
full purses for the many teamsters, the traders in 
feed, the smiths and others of Weissburg. Had the 
outsider penetrated within the sacred confines of the 
Concession — but few foreigners were allowed there — 
he might have marvelled, likewise, at some of the 
77 


6 


The Princess Olga 

primitive methods which had long been tolerated 
there. But until now they had satisfied those who 
were to be satisfied; and, at the worst, there had 
been much profit both for the Weissburg beneficia- 
ries of the Concession and for the direct holders of 
the grant in the continental capitals. In any event, 
Crevonia’s interest was not a part of the problem. 

One other subject of moment in that quarter of 
the globe was the Royal Preserve, given over, gen- 
erations back, to be a retreat of a branch of the 
reigning house of Crevonia. This line was exiled 
from its native land, except that, by the terms of 
settlement governing the articles under which it was 
expelled, it came into possession of a small tract of 
land between the river and the great road crossing 
Crevonia, and lying nearer to Weissburg than the 
Concession. 

Here it was permitted to the banished family to 
maintain its permanent residence, though its mem- 
bers might not set foot in any other part of the king- 
dom. Indeed, so rigorous were the provisions of the 
act excluding that branch from the territory of the 
throne, that approach to the tract and its ancient 
castle was forbidden on the Crevonian highway 
along which flowed the traffic of the Concession. 
The inhabitants of this sequestered land were allow- 
ed to enter or leave their reserve by a private road, 
running directly from the castle, back to the border- 
line of the duchy, whence it debouched across a fiat 
plain, seeking a junction with one of the streets of 
the Weissburg capital. 

But if the expelled house was debarred from Cre- 
vonia by so much as use of the great road, it was 
also written in the bond of sequestration, the pact 
being confirmed and enforced by the powers which 
78 


The Princess Olga, 

surrounded the kingdom, that the banished family 
should not be disturbed in the occupation and ad- 
ministration of the castle and its lands, which were 
designated in the articles, and generally known as 
the Neutral Zone. 

Of the expatriated family the present head was 
the Princess Olga, mentioned by Alexander to Har- 
ding. But she had not lived regularly in her prison 
home since she had been a girl of eleven or twelve, 
when she had begun her education in a convent of 
Dresden, asylum of the poor and unfortunate of 
many climes. 

When the lights had disappeared from the lower 
stories of nearly all the houses in Weissburg one 
night, Gordon Harding descended a terraced street, 
turning at its foot to the right, and walked half a 
square farther, where he entered a public convey- 
ance, which had been standing there for hours. The 
driver must have had previous instructions, for, with- 
out a word exchanged between the two, he started 
off at a leisurely pace. In another street, however, 
he quickened this progress. Still one more turn 
around a comer saw horse and driver aroused from 
an apparently sleepy condition, the carriage rolling 
swiftly. 

It continued for some distance, till it stopped 
abruptly at a small square into which broke a sin- 
gle thoroughfare and two alleys. The door of the 
vehicle was directly opposite one of the latter open- 
ings. Into this Harding stepped, and the cab drove 
off slowly, the lethargic aspect resumed. 

The American followed the alley to its farther 
end, and pursued his way along the avenue into 
which it ran. He was ambling, rather than walk- 
79 


The Princess Olga 

ing, staying close to the walls whenever they bordered 
the sidewalk, where the moon cast protecting shadows. 

Once he passed through a gate, making as if he 
were entering the house within; but he skirted it, 
hastening when he was behind it, and, arriving at a 
rear wall, leaped it lightly, coming this time into a 
narrow street which had long been deserted. Here 
he halted, his eye roving all approaches, his ear bent 
in different directions. Satisfied, he went on. 

After he had marched for several minutes he 
walked softly, evidently listening for any light sound 
which otherwise might escape his ear. He took out 
his handkerchief as if to brush his face — ^the night 
was warm — and it slipped from his hand. Stoop- 
ing, in a natural manner, to regain it, he had an easy 
opportunity to cast a glance back, without appear- 
ing to be watching anything in particular. Im- 
mediately he straightened, though without alarm or 
haste, and continued his path even more slowly 
than before. 

But at the next corner which he turned, sheltered 
in the house angle, he peered around in the direction 
whence he had travelled, watchful and intent. Sev- 
eral hundred yards behind him were two shadows 
advancing stealthily, and stopping now and then for 
concealment under trees and porticos. 

Around the comer Harding was out of the sight of 
those following him, and he broke into a swift run, 
his active, out-door life showing to good purpose, for 
he covered the next block in an astonishingly brief 
time. Once more he wheeled into still another 
avenue, giving a little ejaculation of disappointment 
now; for this one lay before him, wide and clear, 
under the increasing light of the moon. From cor- 
ner to comer there was not a tree along the side- 
80 


The Princess Olga 

walk; all the houses were set back from the front, so 
that scarcely a shadow was cast in his way. From 
the time one should begin to traverse it there would 
be no concealment from those in pursuit. 

He stopped short, straining his body, as one does, 
to the attitude of hearkening sharply. His head 
gave an impatient yet confident shake. There was 
nothing else for it. He laid a hand on the top of 
the railed hedge at his side — it was full six feet 
from the ground — and went over with an easy vault. 
Here he muttered a little oath; for if the street had 
been of unobstructed view, the grounds in which he 
had alighted were bare of even the smallest shrub. 
The mansion sat in the centre of a flat lawn ; on the 
green expanse everything was as plain to the eye as 
on a billiard-table under electric bulbs. A further 
and more serious situation confronted him. He dis- 
cerned at once that he had thrust himself into a 
veritable cul-de-sac, for, by deliberate arrangement, 
approach to or departure from the place had been 
made impossible, except by the front, a smooth, 
towering fence running along the other sides several 
feet above the longest reach or highest leap. To 
withdraw he must go out the way he had come — 
into the open where he must be seen. The choice 
was this or a possible entry into the house itself. 
There w^s little time to decide; he did not hesitate. 
Without a second look he made straight for the 
house. As he approached it, quickly and noiselessly 
on the grassy carpet, his eye sought an open window 
or any offered retreat of which he might make use. 
His countenance was grim with resolve, as if he 
might commit the crime of house-breaking, as well 
as the offence of invasion, if necessary to hide him- 
self from those in his wake. 

8i 


The Princess Olga 

A white-painted piazza shone before him; but it 
would have been folly to expect concealment there. 
His quick judgment warned him of this at the same 
moment that his keen glance measured its floor as 
about even with the top of the hedge. He had ar- 
rived at the side of the mansion, darkened from top 
to bottom, only its whiteness gleaming imder the 
brilliant flood from on high. Now he passed around 
rapidly to the front, and beheld the figure of a wom- 
an, half without the door, taking a last view of the 
beautiful, still night. He coughed very lightly, that 
his sudden approach might not startle her into a cry 
of alarm, and, while she turned in astonishment to 
gaze at the intruder, he calmly raised his hat, as he 
might have done if he were paying a call. 

“Pardon me,” he said, in French, for that lan- 
guage was generally spoken by the better classes in 
Weissburg. Then he stopped, for the person before 
him, on the upper level of the piazza, looking down 
at him with wonder and something else more dis- 
turbed, was Madame Vaillant. 

As she gazed on him her eyes were opened wide, 
her face white in the moonlight. For the while he 
said nothing, returning her look, his own eye showing 
that clear gleam, his teeth dazzling in the bright rays. 

“You!” she cried, at last. 

“Hush!” he enjoined, calmly. 

“What brings you here?” she demanded, in a 
piercing whisper. 

VHush!” he warned her again, “or they will hear 
you.” 

He pointed towards the street. 

“'yV'ho?” she faltered. 

* “Those who wish to find me,” he answered, with a 
smile. 


82 


The Princess Olga, 

“But why have you come here?” she murmured, 
her agitation increasing. 

“It was not my doing,” he smiled, indicating pur- 
suers with another gesture towards the avenue. 

“You must go; you must go,” she said. 

“Out there, where they are waiting for me?” he 
asked, coolly. 

She intertwined her fingers, looking at him with 
the wide-open lids, fear behind them. But he turned 
his head, listening. 

“They are out on the sidewalk,” he whispered. 
“If they come in they will discover me; if they 
should scale the hedge — if they should unfasten the 
gate — they must soon search these grounds,” he 
cautioned, in a low voice, still cool. 

He mounted to her side, she drawing back from 
him. 

“ If they should cross to the other side,” he breathed, 
“don’t you see that their angle of vision would take 
me in standing here? Do you hear them? They 
are discussing whether they shall come in or not. 
They will soon act. If madame delays, they must 
discover me. I wish to elude them. There is only 
one retreat for me.” 

His glance shot within the open door. 

“If Madame VaiUant wishes me to be discovered,” 
he said, and waved his arm in the direction where 
the pursuers were. 

She cast a glance around — at him, at the street, 
at the inner hall, dark where the shadow of night 
was deep. 

“If you delay,” he repeated, under his breath. 

Madame Vaillant stepped hurriedly back; he did 
not wait for her to beckon him with either word or 
sign, but followed her within. 

83 


The Princess Olga 

“Thank you,” he said, quietly. 

She had closed the door quickly, and was trying 
to fasten it with shaking fingers, as he could tell from 
their groping in the dark, from the frightened, eager 
way in which she panted. 

“If I had a light,” she murmured, in a voice of 
despair. 

“No,” he said in her ear, his lips so close that he 
felt her shrink away from him, “that would betray 
something unusual to them. They have come in; 
they are crossing the lawn. Don’t you hear?” 

He felt over the door, found the bolt, and his 
fingers, strong and steady, slipped it home without 
sound. 

“There!” he laughed, under his breath; “let them 
search!” 


CHAPTER IX 


M adame VAI leant crossed from the dark hall 
to the reception-room at the side, brilliant near 
the windows where the light from the heavens 
streamed in. He saw how disturbed were her feat- 
ures, how heedless she was of what she was doing; 
for there in the illuminated space any one peering 
within might have seen her white frock, the raven 
folds of her hair, even the feverish glitter of her eye, 
above the pallor of her cheek. 

“Will you not step out of view, to guard us from 
detection?” he asked, speaking in an ordinary tone, 
though they could see the two men moving carefully 
around the place. 

She fell back into the shadows with fresh alarm, 
and from that on, both in the deep obscurity of the 
room, they said nothing, watching the slinking fig- 
ures pass from corner to corner. Then, no longer 
able to follow them with their vision for the moment, 
while the pair were around on the side, they heard 
their crafty feet ascending the steps. Softly they 
tried the door ; and Harding was vividly conscious of 
the fast beating of her heart. He stretched forth an 
arm, laying his hand lightly on hers, to reassure her, 
keeping it there while those outside crept around the 
piazza, stopped at each window, testing its fasten- 
ings. Once, at the fumbling of their fingers, so near 
them, she smothered a gasp of terror, and his clasp 
closed on hers like a vise; then they went on. 

8S 


The Princess Olga 

Later the searchers stood in the centre of the 
lawn conferring, with heads close together. They 
scrutinized the house, to convince themselves that it 
had been dark from the start; that there was, and 
had been, no life stirring inside. 

When the two moved out into the street Harding 
lifted his fingers from hers. When they closed the 
high gate silently behind them he laughed quietly. 

“They are satisfied,” he said; “we shall soon be 
rid of them.” 

But they beheld the couple pass over to the op- 
posite sidewalk, reviewing the situation, puzzled. 
They did not depart; they separated, one going to 
the right, the other to the left, then returning, as if 
they were patrolling a post. Harding laughed again. 

“They are standing watch,” he said. 

Every few minutes they returned to confer, re- 
suming the patrol. 

“You must let me talk to you,” he said, “to kill 
the time, until they are tired of running their fool’s 
errand.” 

But she threw her disturbed glance on him, wring- 
ing her hands. 

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, in the 
frightened notes. “What are you doing?” 

“You must see. How can you ask?” he answered, 
calmly. “We are throwing them off the scent.” 

“Then it was you?” she demanded, coming close 
to him and looking into his eyes. “It was you of 
whom they have been talking. You have been hid- 
ing there in the Concession.” 

He spread out one hand in negligent protest 
against the declaration. 

“I have not been hiding until to-night,” he re- 
plied, “thanks to you. So far as I am concerned, 
86 


The Princess Olga 

there is no reason why I should be hiding to-night; 
I have merely wished to avoid an annoyance to an- 
other — no more than an annoyance.” 

“Some one you were going to meet secretly?” she 
asked, with open eagerness. 

“Some one,” he assented. 

“And that one?” she asked, in an intense whis- 
per. 

“Some one,” he answered, “who does not desire 
that his presence in Weissburg should be known, 
else I should not have needed to trouble you. For 
myself, it could make no difference.” 

Her dark eye searched his impassive countenance, 
but it showed no concern. 

“You think they were eavesdroppers?” she said. 

“Spies,” he gave back, curtly, with contempt in 
his accent. 

Now he bent on her not the over-long but a shoot- 
ing glance of scrutiny. A bit of the moonlight fell 
on her, and at his tone he saw the pink spread over 
her cheek. 

“In Weissburg,” he said, carelessly, “I am told 
there are many spies.” 

He pointed over the hedge and across the street. 

“They are still waiting — spies,” he said. 

Suddenly he turned the course of conversation. 

“You have been long in Weissburg?” he asked. 

“Not so long,” she shot at him, her eyes flashing 
with the words, “as you in the Concession.” 

“ But not hiding,” he denied, quietly, harking back 
to her former accusation. “Busy — ^working; trying 
to make something reasonable out of the unreason- 
able; something useful out of the useless. I have 
been very busy.” 

“Very few persons have known who it was in the 
87 


The Princess Olga 

Concession effecting the reorganization,” she said, 
defiantly. 

“Those whose affair it was have known,” he re- 
turned, coolly. “I happened to arrive at night. I 
went directly to my work. It has held my atten- 
tion ever since — except for a few visits to Weissburg 
for conference.” 

“At night,” she declared. 

“Invariably,” he agreed, “for in the day I have 
been at work. There has been a-plenty to engage 
me.” 

“ But monsieur,” she accused, in French, “has been 
very careful that no one should know of his pres- 
ence.” 

“If I had known,” he returned, earnestly, “that 
you were here, you may be sure that you would have 
had the information. I should have brought it in 
person — to you.” 

In the tense situation which had attended the 
search of the men along the piazza at their very side, 
and in the unusual position in which he found him- 
self afterwards — alone with her, in an unlighted 
house, secretly and in trepidation conspiring to se- 
cure his retreat — ^he had forgotten the warning con- 
veyed in her letter, handed to him at the Calais 
train — ^her warning that she was not Mademoiselle 
but Madame Vaillant. He did not remember now. 

Stepping nearer to her, he put out his hand in a 
strong, confident gesture. 

“ I should have come to you,” he said. “ Instead, 
we come to each other. It will always be so.” 

But she shrank from him, her face dyed with such 
color that he must have seen it, if there had been no 
flood of the golden beams to reveal her aspect. Then 
he recalled the truth. 


88 


The Princess Olga 

“ I beg your pardon,” he faltered. It was the first 
sign of confusion or hesitation she had ever beheld 
in him. “I beg your pardon,” he repeated, his eyes 
down. Then he gave her an honest, courageous gaze, 
at which she smiled faintly, showing a sort of shame 
where he was looking fortitude. “If Monsieur Var- 
iant is at home,” he said, steadily. 

“He is not here,” she breathed. 

“I would have presented myself,” he added, slow- 
ly, “to pay my respects, to thank him for your 
service of hospitality. Perhaps it will be safe for 
me to leave here now.” 

She gave a start, going to the window and scan- 
ning the scene without. 

“They seem to have vanished,” he said. 

She shook her head slowly; then, as if with des- 
perate resolve, said, hurriedly: “Monsieur must have 
a care. He does not know Weissburg. He thinks 
they are spies seeking only information. They may 
work him harm.” 

He gave a little indifferent laugh. 

“Have no fear,” he answered. “I am doing the 
work of those who sent me here. They have arms 
sufficiently long — ^in Weissburg — to see that nothing 
interferes with their interests. It is of no concern 
to me that all the world should know where I am — 
in the Concession; what I am doing, as any one 
might see — putting the enterprise on a sound basis. 
There are those who come at times to see me, and 
who do not wish their movenients to be known. In 
such secrecy as you have been made aware of to- 
night, I consider not myself, but their desires. I 
would have none of it. I could do my work as well 
in the open ; so could they. This is one of the super- 
stitions of old-fogyism,” he added, in quiet derision. 

89 


The Princess Olga 

“But it is not worth while correcting. I humor 
them.” 

“Monsieur must not be too sure,” she urged, ear- 
nestly. 

A nod of his head rejected her warning. 

“It is nothing of consequence,” he denied. 

“In Weissburg,” she said, in a very low voice, 
turning her glance as if she feared others might dis- 
cover her betraying information of things to be kept 
inviolate, “there are men to be hired for any manner 
of service.” 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“It does not concern me,” he said, “if only I may 
prevent them from jarring the superstitions of my 
friends.” 

“But if they strike,” she whispered, excitedly, 
fearfully. 

“What would be the use?” he asked, smiling. 

She took a turn up and down the room, striving 
to restrain her emotion, failing. 

“You must be on your guard,” she cautioned him, 
stopping before him and striving to look into his 
eye, again failing. 

“On the contrary,” he answered, “I must be start- 
ing to keep an appointment, if our watchful friends 
outside are really gone.” 

She lifted a quick, passionate hand to deny his in- 
tent. 

“You must not — not to-night,” she whispered. 

“Do you care to explain?” he asked, calmly. 

She shook her head. 

“If it is likely to cause you no embarrassment now 
to have me seen, possibly, leaving here,” he declared, 
“ I must be going.” 

“You must not,” she protested, fiercely. 

90 


The Princess Olga 

Until now they had remained on their feet, mov- 
ing into or out of the moon’s light as they talked. 
He had asked her before if she would not be seated. 
Again he offered her a chair, and she sank into it, 
sighing alarm rather than relief. 

“You do not explain,” he said, quietly; “yet I 
take it that you have reason for your advice. You 
have been most kind in my predicament. You have 
performed a service for which I am grateful. If 
monsieur — if there were any one in your house to 
whom you might present me — if you were likely to 
have some one here with us until such time as I 
might go forth without detection, it would make 
no difference if it were any time between now and 
daylight. Before then I must keep the appoint- 
ment. Is there no one — ?” 

“No,” she whispered, sharply; “this is General 
Krag’s house.” 

“General Krag, then,” he said. 

“No, no,” she repeated; “he must not know; no 
one must know.” 

He went to the window, looking out, not long, but 
keenly. 

“It is impossible to remain,” he said, returning; 
“it is not to be thought of. It is asking too much 
of Madame Vaillant. I shall not stay. After all,” 
he added, “it is of slight consequence. If madame 
will permit, I shall open the door and depart.” 

She leaned forward in her chair, her eyes burning 
deeply, her words falling from nervous lips. 

“You must not go that way,” she insisted, shiver- 
ing. 

“General Krag, then,” he said. 

“He must not know,” she declared again, in a 
tone of intense fervor. 


91 


The Princess Olga 

“What am I to do, madame?” he asked, with a 
trace of mockery which made her flinch. “ I must 
not stay; I must not go by the door; I have no 
wings.” 

She in turn crossed to the window, coming back, 
and swaying as her slight form had done on his arm 
in the Garden of the Nations. 

“Swear!” she whispered, in dramatic accents. 

“To what?” he asked, unruffled. 

“That no one shall learn I am here — I am not 
known to be in Weissburg.” 

“It is not necessary to swear,” he replied; “ma- 
dame’s desire is sufficient.” 

“That you will not reveal who it was you saw — 
who helped you.” 

“It is the secret of Madame Vaillant alone,” he 
said, gravely. 

“That it shall be forgotten how you effected your 
departure.” 

“Only that I departed — and at whose hand,” he 
averred, with composure. 

Once more she arose, motioning with her head on 
the swiftly moving, supple figure, that he was to fol- 
low. She led him back into what was evidently the 
dining-room, pointing to a table in the centre. He 
understood that it was to be moved, and without 
sound, for she took one end to raise it clear. But, 
saying no word, his fingers unfastened her hold, and 
when she stepped back he lifted it easily, disclosing 
the strength of his muscular form, and deposited it 
at one side, near the wall, in the deepest shadows. 

On the floor a little brass knob, such as indicates 
the bell for the foot of the mistress of the table, lay 
innocently before them, glittering in the moonlight. 
He strode over and drew a curtain, so that the tell- 
92 


The Princess Olga 


tale sign was no longer sharply prominent. Her 
small hand, still nervous, played with the knob for a 
moment, and there opened to them stairs leading 
downward. Madame Vaillant caught his smile — ^not 
of triumph, nor of satisfaction, but the smile of mild 
derision for old - fashioned playthings, like secret 
stairways, long discarded by serious, useful folk in 
the enlightened world. For the moment she flung 
up her head in resentment of his expression, defiance 
spreading on hers ; but now he smiled encouragement 
and his thanks. She went down, Harding closely 
following. 

Where they advanced, after reaching the foot of 
the stairs, it was pitchy black. They were in an 
underground passage. He could feel the coldness of 
the walls. A damp odor swept their faces as they 
marched on, he guided by that sense of her presence 
always, at times by her quick breathing. 

Once he made a little false step, and he laughed 
out at his clumsiness in the dark. But, reaching 
back, she caught his hand, to impress upon him 
caution and to help him on the way. Again he for- 
got that she was Madame Vaillant, and he crushed 
the slim fingers eagerly, murmuring indistinct words 
to her. Though she did not tear away the im- 
prisoned hand, he remembered again, and his grasp 
relaxed, not quitting hers, still thrilling his touch. 

After a while they began an ascent of several 
yards, coming up against a wall of wood, as he could 
recognize when his hand brushed it. She leaned 
next to it, panting. 

“And now?” he whispered, through the blackness. 

“Now,” she breathed, “it is to open.” 

For the while she caught her quick breaths. 

“Oh!” she cried, “why did you ever come?” 

93 


7 


The Princess Olga 

*‘I am sorry,” he said, “to have caused you so 
much trouble.” 

“I do not mean to the house — ^to Weissburg — ^to 
the Concession,” she trembled. 

In the gloom of the place he could picture her pale 
features as she had first greeted him that evening. 
She was so near him; her unseen presence was so 
eloquent; the words shivering from her lips were so 
instinct with emotion ; it was so dark. He stretched 
out his hand, searching till he found hers. 

“It was because of you that I came,” he avowed, 
between his teeth, as if he half remembered who she 
was, half forgot, by force of will. 

“ Of me ?” she uttered, frightened. “ What of me ? 
What had I to do with it? What do you think?” 

“Because of you,” he repeated, in words intense, 
yet ringing confidence. “If I never had seen you 
that night in New York I should not have been in 
the Ur alia — our paths might never have crossed. 
I had received an offer to come here to the Conces- 
sion. There was something about it which appealed 
to me; still it seemed not worth the while — trivial, 
or yet worse, absurd. I had the night to think it 
over. Then I saw you — you were sailing in the 
Uralia. I had resolved, in the minute before, to 
decline; but when I met you, then I knew I should 
go. That night I sent word to those who had sug- 
gested the plan that I would accept, provided I 
could go in the Uralia. It was you,” he repeated, 
in a deep tone. “Do you blame me now? Are you 
sorry? Oh!” he cried, in a recoil of reason and self- 
disgust, “forgive me again.” 

She leaned at his side, voiceless in the dark, breath- 
ing in that fast, sharp way. Then she wrung a little 
cry from her throat. 


94 


The Princess Olga 

“You must not say it,” she whispered; “you 
must never think it again. Listen: I shall open the 
wall; there is a passage without; go to the left. 
There is another alley; turn there to the right; sur- 
mount the fence; you will be in an avenue of trees 
running through private grounds. It comes out on 
a garden. There in front is a street, which you will 
know. Have a care for your life,” she shivered. 
“They would kill you. Caution. Speed!” 

She had been speaking in English, her words com- 
ing with swift, disturbed force. She broke into 
French : 

“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! do not cross my path 
again; take yourself out of my life!” 

He felt the cool, refreshing air of the night on his 
face; the blue sky, lit with the moon, was above his 
eyes. Involuntarily he stepped forward into the 
open, turning to give her his adieu. He faced a 
blank wooden wall, high and smooth! There was no 
sign of the egress through which he had come — no 
door, no lock. He pushed against the solid planks 
with a determined hand ; there was no yielding. He 
rapped ; no answer. Louder ; nothing. 

For a moment he stood under the white glamour of 
the moon, smiling thoughtfully. Then he followed 
the course she had given him. 


CHAPTER X 


I F Harding had been in the Concession for weeks 
or months without the identity of the new ad- 
ministrator becoming known outside of its boun- 
daries, his course, subsequent to his success in eluding 
those who had followed him to the house of General 
Krag, was likely to give the lie to any theory that 
he meditated deliberate secrecy as to his presence 
on the Forest Island. The lame little railroad 
which trundled into Weissburg had brought for him 
a long, swift motor-car, and now in this he fre- 
quently whirled along the road between the Con- 
cession and the prosperous capital of the duchy. 
Always he appeared in the car only in the daytime, 
however; and if he continued to make visits under 
cover of night, such as had thrown him across the 
path of Madame Vaillant, he did not attract atten- 
tion on these errands by driving an automobile with 
its streaming lights and its whir of machinery. 

When he drove his machine into the town it was 
at an hour which would permit his return before 
sundown. Then he was notable for the swiftness of 
his course — ^there being no speed restrictions in the 
duchy — and his perfect mastery of the fleeting en- 
gine as he shot it daringly, but always surely, through 
the ever-thickening traffic which all but blocked the 
way to and from the Concession. 

It was observable to all, moreover, that, since he 
had taken control of the great enterprise, there 
96 


The Princess Olga 

flowed both from and to the Concession a more 
densely arranged train of wagons, vans, and carts. 
If the company were sending out to the world a 
vastly enlarged product, evidently it likewise was 
bringing in many new implements, and constantly 
increasing supplies for the growing number of work- 
men employed on the Forest Island, to the added 
prosperity of fortunate Weissburg. 

Much of the improvement that was wrought in 
the administration of the Concession was surmise, 
fortified by the evidence of activity at the railway 
freight sheds, of teeming traffic on the road, and of 
money in the pockets of the Weissburgers; for, of 
course, now as formerly, the Concession was guarded 
from the outside public like a royal park or a mili- 
tary reservation. Strangers had no business within 
its limits; no one was admitted without proper cre- 
dentials, and when a visitor witnessed the busy 
scenes which were enacted under the management 
of the iron-willed but quiet -spoken American, he saw 
no more than suited both the wish of the manage- 
ment and non-interference with the administration 
of the property at the highest economic advantage. 

On the rapid journeys which Harding made to 
Weissburg, generally on business which was promptly 
despatched, he was occasionally accompanied by a 
young man, well known in both the duchy and in 
the little kingdom, a native of the latter place, yet 
bearing the English name of Mordaunt, and, under 
the dark eyes and hair so common to Crevonia, the 
thoroughly British complexion. His great-grand- 
father had married a woman of the Crevonian no- 
bility, this descendant carrying English characteris- 
tics into the fourth generation, while being typical 
of the kingdom in dress and manner. 

97 


The Princess Olga 

More frequently, however, Harding drove alone. 
And invariably, when no one was with him, he sped 
his car through the avenue bordered for part of its 
way by the high, rail-topped hedge over which he 
had vaulted one moonlight night. Yet he more 
than obeyed Madame Vaillant’s injunction not to 
betray her presence in Weissburg. He ignored her 
voluntary imprisonment in the house to the extent 
of sitting erect, with his eye held rigidly before him, 
as he darted past. If she ever observed him from a 
window, he had no way of knowing. If she were 
ever, in fact, to be observed herself, he could not 
have told, for he made not the slightest effort to see. 
Nevertheless, he continued to drive the car along 
that avenue on his flight to or from the Concession. 

A man of less direct method or downright purpose 
might have reflected that if it were his intention to 
give the lie to an imputation concerning the openness 
of his movements, this somewhat conspicuous flour- 
ish of actions might fail to carry conviction to an 
astute mind, or to one searching an ulterior motive 
in an apparently candid course. But Harding never 
conveyed, by so much as a subtle smile at the corner 
of the Arm mouth, that he sought anything except 
the straightest and shortest way for the flight of his 
car. 

Week in and week out, however, the traffic flowed 
through the streets of Weissburg in thickening vol- 
ume; and the motor winged its course at intervals 
under the controlling touch of the administrator of 
the great property on the Forest Island. 

Whirling swiftly along the 'familiar avenue one 
evening, Harding very nearly ran down a boy in the 
long -skirted, ungainly buff blouse customary in 
Crevonia. So unexpectedly had the careless young 
98 


The Princess Olga 

man darted across the street from the sidewalk that 
to avoid crushing him Harding was forced to apply 
the brakes with all the power under his calm com- 
mand. In that instant, while he was deflecting the 
checked course of the car to the left so as to pass 
behind the threatened wayfarer, the boy as suddenly 
started backward. Harding shouted a quick, stem 
warning at the moment he again twirled his steering- 
wheel to escape the now almost inevitable collision. 
He was too late to miss entirely. The projecting 
mud-guard caught the flying coat-tails and pitched 
the heedless fellow forward to the pavement, but not 
heavily, for the car was now nearly motionless. 

Instantly the American Was out himself, reaching to 
lift up the victim of gross carelessness and confusion. 
But the lad scrambled to his feet, his hand in the 
assisting grasp of Harding, and slipped away and 
around the corner. Then a woman, heavily veiled, 
passed close to him, touching his fingers lightly; and 
she also vanished. Harding found himself standing 
alone, a note in his hand, a lingering sensation both 
of whispered warning in his ears and of archness be- 
fore his vision. He climbed back to his seat, and 
threw on his power, without relaxing the grip of his 
fingers on the bit of paper until he was out and be- 
yond Weissburg. 

In French the well-known handwriting ran: 

“Though one must remain hidden from sight, im- 
prisonment is hard to bear for one who loves the 
blue sky and the free air. 

“Yet one dresses for the automobile as if in dis- 
guise from the eyes of all the world. 

“Should monsieur desire to bestow a brief hour of 
liberty on a weary prisoner, there is a house in the 
99 


The Princess Olga 

street parallel to one he knows; it is third from the 
lower corner of that other. The direction is west 
from the avenue in which he usually drives. 

“Every day for a week the cage will open at one 
o’clock.” 

Parting from her in the subterranean passage, she 
had begged him not to cross her path again. Now 
she invited him to see her. On the next day Har- 
ding drove his car to the suggested place of meeting. 
The door was not more than twenty feet from the 
pavement. As he came to a halt it opened, and a 
figure suitably attired for a ride in wind and dust 
came down the steps, and immediately was at his 
side. Till then he had not realized how complete a 
disguise an ordinary automobile costume was, for 
within the folds of the roomy driving-coat the slight 
figure had no semblance of the supple grace which 
was so marked when free to the eye; behind the 
density of the enclosing brown veil was neither 
sparkle nor life to the eye; no turn of cheek nor 
curve of lip visible. As he opened the throttle with 
a quick touch, he gave a little laugh. 

“It is complete,” he said. “I do not know if you 
are really the prisoner whom I imagined I was to 
free, or some other. How long shall we make the 
reprieve?” 

“As long as monsieur pleases,” came the murmur 
from the folds. “The escaped bird does not long to 
re-enter the cage.” 

“Ah!” he replied, and let the car out, saying noth- 
ing, watching the course as they ate it up, till they 
were beyond Weissburg, out on the Crevonian high- 
way, now passing the long lines of wagons, now, 
after leaving the Neutral Zone in the rear, up even 

lOO 


The Princess Olga, 

with the narrow neck running out to the promontory 
which was the Forest Island. As they slipped past 
the entrance to the Concession he saw her face turn 
towards the great gate, flanked on each side by the 
square houses, like sentry-boxes before a military 
post; only here the men who stood about wore no 
uniforms and carried no arms. Yet the suggestion was 
of something like pickets before an army in quarters. 

She gave a stifled ejaculation, turning her shaded 
gaze farther back the road, where lay the castle of 
the Princess Olga, hidden from view by the trees 
massed on that side. Despite the looseness of the 
garment which served to conceal her form, he felt 
that she quivered in the seat beside him. 

“Did our approach remind you of prisons?” he 
laughed. 

For the moment she forgot her letter to which he 
directed his careless allusion. 

“I am afraid I don’t catch your meaning,” she 
confessed. Then she ran on somewhat quickly, with 
an uncalled-for earnestness: “They are much alike 
— the- Concession and the Zone — though different. 
They are apart from the outside world; none may 
go in the one without sanction; none may come out 
of the other. One is sacred, the other is interdict.” 

“You would prefer — ?” he asked. 

“Neither,” she answered, with conviction. 

She broke into the musical laugh which in the 
olden days in the ship had frequently covered her 
retreat from ground she did not care to hold. 

“It is beautiful — in the country,” she said, draw- 
ing a long breath, as if the veil denied her the air she 
had sought. 

“Shall we spin along?” he asked. “I have never 
been this way before.” 


lOI 


The Princess Olga 

“Nor I,” she answered. “This is Crevonia. I 
have never set foot on its soil.” 

“Such as it is,” he averred, with a mild note of 
contempt for what could be of little interest to any 
one. “In the kingdom, I am told, there are only 
two things of value; neither is for the Crevonians.” 

“The Concession,” she said, “which is for the 
foreigners, and — ” 

He pointed over where the river glistened among 
the meadows of the flat lands through which they 
were speeding. 

“The fools!” he went on. “They think it is their 
eternal protection, since it enables them to maintain 
a national integrity which is of no use to them.” 

“But if they prize it?” she asked. 

“ Prize it ?” he echoed, his lip curling. “ For what ? 
What has it ever done for them ? What will it ever 
do?” 

“If it is sufficient to them that they remain a 
nation,” she replied, “is that not what they might 
prize with reason ?” 

“In the end,” he replied, in the cold voice of im- 
partial judgment, “either the one greedy power will 
make some bargain with the other, or one will feel 
strong enough to defy its rival. It is only a ques- 
tion of time — Crevonia will be swallowed.” 

“Meanwhile,” she replied, “I believe the people 
are proud to be independent, governed by their own 
rulers.” 

“Meanwhile,” he laughed, contemptuously, “they 
rot.” 

“You have no feelings for the weak and unsuc- 
cessful?” she inquired. 

“For the stupid and ignorant,” he gave back, in 
the tone of calm confidence. 


102 


The Princess Olga, 

“Can’t you respect sentiment — theirs as to their 
native land?” she challenged. 

“Do you respect them — the Crevonians?” he de- 
manded. 

“I don’t know them,” she replied. “Yet I, who 
once lost a small inheritance that was my right, can 
appreciate what another might feel at the threat to 
rob him of his — and his country.” 

Her reference to that subject sent his thoughts 
back to the steamer. 

“Those days in the Ur alia'' he said, with a rush 
of feeling. 

She slipped away from the subject, murmuring 
behind the veil at a group of peasants in a field, toil- 
ing slowly in the long tunics and the heavy boots of 
the country. 

There was much of the time when they said noth- 
ing, holding their lips tightly closed against the rush- 
ing air, for he drove mile after mile over the whitened 
road at the extreme pace of the big, leaping machine. 
On an eminence, showing the level leagues behind 
them, hills ahead, and farther beyond the tops of 
mountains, he stopped the car. 

“How far have we gone?” she asked. 

“Half across Crevonia,” he answered. 

She gave a little cry of surprised dissent, peering 
into his face, as he knew, to see if he were mocking 
so puny a kingdom. 

“But it is some distance at that,” he went on; 
“perhaps ninety or a hundred miles, for we have 
reeled them off, for stretches, at fifty an hour, and it 
is after three.” 

“Three o’clock!” she exclaimed, “and ninety 
miles!” 

“Or more,” he smiled. “The car does as high as 

103 


The Princess Olga, 

sixty when at her best, and she is nearly at that de- 
gree to-day. The roads of Crevonia, whatever else 
we think of the country, are excellent.” 

They started for the run back, flashing over the 
down grade faster than they had come up the slight 
rise, until, on the homeward flight, the machine 
slackened at a touch of the throttle. 

‘‘It is a stupid country.” He returned to his old 
charge. 

“Is it so at the Concession?” she challenged. 

“It is not what I expected,” he said, with convic- 
tion. 

“ But you have made Weissburg chatter about the 
wonders you have performed,” she assured him. 

“They are not worth while,” he rejoined. 

“But,” she declared, not looking at him, “it is a 
great enterprise.” 

“We Americans,” he laughed, “are accused of 
bragging; yet it is a fact that we have steel com- 
panies which employ more men than the population 
of Weissburg and part of Crevonia. We have, as 
probably you know, a single railway of more than 
thirty thousand miles of track. I have seen ten 
thousand men drop on a plain and in a week build 
a city.” 

“So the Concession is not satisfying?” 

“It has no real possibilities.” 

“And such unfortunates are to be ignored?” 

“Not ignored — ^they do not suffice.” 

“Not to do well what there is to do?” she asked. 

He did not meet the question. 

“There was one type- writing machine in the Con- 
cession when I came,” he smiled. “Think of men, 
who ought to be busy with the greater works, wast- 
ing time writing with their hands !” 

104 


The Princess Olga 

“How many of the machines are there now?” she 
asked, and he felt that her eyes were scoffing, though 
his were fixed on the road. 

“It is like men taking the time to sharpen their 
lead-pencils, when boys can do it,” he declared. 

“But if there are times when the men can attend 
to the pencils?” she suggested. 

“There are always other things which could fit 
in the opportunities. Lead -pencils are useful; to 
sharpen them is necessary. But any one can do it.” 

“And you regret that you came?” 

“I don’t think so,” he answered, with decision. 

She had no wish to pursue that line further at the 
risk of personalities. 

“Have you seen the Duke of Weissburg’s car?” 
she inquired, irrelevantly. 

“Never; nor him,” he replied. “He is not much 
at home, is he?” 

“I could not say,” she averred. 

“Nor the Princess Olga — she has a place in Weiss- 
burg ?” 

It was across the grounds of the closed palace of 
her Highness that Harding had made his way on the 
night that he had come through the secret passage 
of General Krag’s house. He had learned as much 
afterwards, as well as that the Princess had not been 
there in years, living in Dresden and other foreign 
cities. 

“She is a lucky woman,” he said. 

“How?” she asked. “She is an exile, save that 
she may stay in the Neutral Zone.” 

“Prince Alexander is my authority for her good- 
fortune — that she is in no danger of reigning over 
Crevonia.” 

“He should know,” she admitted. “He is the 

105 


The Princess Olga, 

heir apparent; yet the Princess might be willing to 
cast away what you call her good-fortune.” 

She spoke in the tone of one who expected her 
listener to understand that she was conveying in- 
formation. 

“I don’t suppose,” he laughed, “that princesses, 
more than ordinary mortals, appreciate their bless- 
ings. I don’t suppose they take advice.” 

“Does anybody — do you?” she asked, derisively. 

“I have taken yours,” he answered, quietly. “I 
have exercised a care for myself, though I do not 
know why it should be necessary.” 

“You found no confirmation of my warning?” she 
asked, a little eagerly. 

“Yes, I did.” 

She waited for him to continue ; but he was watch- 
ing the tire of a wheel which, he announced, was not 
running true. 

“In what way?” she asked, tensely. 

“A woman — an old woman, who was begging alms, 
tried to stab me.” 

“To stab you?” 

“Yes, I shot her — after I discovered that she was 
a man.” 

She gave a gasp, putting up a hand as if to thrust 
away the veil. 

“Where was it?” she shivered. 

“On this road — farther down, of course; for I have 
not been out this way before. It was near the en- 
trance to the Concession, just after dark.” 

“Yet,” she cried, nervously, “you come out on this 
road, miles away from your people!” 

“I don’t think,” he said, quietly, “there is danger 
in daylight; after dark I take your advice — ^now.” 

She was staring at him through the veil. Her 
io6 


The Princess Olga 

hand wavered on her knee; then she sat more erect, 
appearing to hold herself stiffly. 

“ It is a perfectly absurd thing for anybody to kill 
me,” he said. “The Concession’s business would go 
on just the same — ^it would go on if every one in the 
island were destroyed — because it is of use to those 
who have the grant, and they would not fail to go as 
they are going.” 

They were not far from where some wooded marsh- 
land lay, above the Concession. In the road was a 
pedestrian, who, seeing their approach, stepped to 
one side to let them pass. Harding, his eye steadily 
on the man, opened the throttle wide, the car shoot- 
ing ahead with that shrill hum of its highest speed. 
The one on foot motioned, at first naturally, then 
more vehemently, as if requesting him to stop; but 
Harding, his gaze never leaving the one who was sig- 
nalling, whirled past. He had given no indication 
of alarm; he was calmly confident in the way she 
knew. 

After a look back through the dust clouds, she 
asked, nervously, “What was it?” 

“ Probably nothing more than a spy,” he answered. 

His tone carried his indifferent contempt for the 
person he characterized and for the class. 

“To see where you had been?” she asked. 

“Who we were,” he corrected. “No one has ever 
seen this car beyond the reservation before; no one 
has ever seen a woman with me before.” 

He paused for a moment. 

“ It would be a natural topic for spies.” 

There was something about the way he strung out 
his words which moved her to shoot at his eyes a 
straight glance which seemed to bum through the 
folds hiding her face. His were composed. Then 
107 


The Princess Olga 

her vision fell on one of his hands, for it was return- 
ing a revolver to his pocket. All in a tremble she 
watched the movement. 

“Nothing but a spy. Are you in the service of 
the Princess Olga?” he asked, bluntly. 

She answered him without hesitation in a quick, 
firm voice: 

“ Whatever I should tell you would not be divulged. 
You have one of my secrets now — my resting-place. 
There is no reason I should not give you another — ^in 
reply to your frank question. I am, with General 
Krag.” 

“The Princess Olga,” he said, “is a lucky woman.” 

She did not mistake his remark for a compliment 
to herself ; she knew that he was repeating his opin- 
ion of her good - fortune to be out of the affairs of 
Crevonia. 

“Tell her so,” he added, “though she probably 
will not heed your opinion.” 

“Why should she?” 

He waved his hand. 

“After all,” he said, “whether she does or not — 
whether she gets the advice or not — is of no particu- 
lar consequence.” 

They were past the Concession and well on towards 
Weissburg. 

“We have made a good run,” he declared. 

Her thoughts were so far away from the motor- 
car that she started, saying nothing as they closed 
the gap between them and the duchy. 

“ In two minutes,” he said, “I shall be setting you 
down at your door-step.” 

“The one where you found me,” she interposed, 
hastily. 

“ Naturally,” he responded. 

io8 


The Princess Olga 

“I had something which I really wished to tell 
you; I did not know how,” she said, as the car ran 
in towards the curb. 

“Is it of immediate importance?” he asked. “I 
will give you another whirl out in the other direc- 
tion.” 

“No, no,” she replied, hastily. 

“Why don’t you let me drive you out some day to 
the Concession?” he asked. “You would still have 
your disguise. Out there are only Crevonians; you 
know none. You could come, and no one would 
suspect — if you still wish to avoid publicity.” 

She was looking at him in astonishment. 

“The Concession!” she cried, under her breath. 

“It might interest you,” he smiled. “You could 
tell me then.” 

“The Concession!” she repeated. 

“If it wouldn’t bore you to death,” he said. 

She threw him a quick, searching glance as she 
turned to go into the house. 

“Come next week, any day, at the same hour,” 
she said, in a low tone. 


CHAPTER XI 


T homas MORDAUNT — though seven -eighths 
Crevonian, he carried the name of his great- 
grandfather with pride — affected the fondness of his 
British strain for Scotch and soda, while consuming 
quantities of cigarettes after the manner of his coun- 
try; otherwise, save for a marked British accent, he 
radiated the characteristics of the race into which 
the first of his family had married. 

Harding had not an over-good opinion of English 
wit. He believed the Crevonians were dull to H.de- 
gree, but by some chance the mingling of the two 
bloods in Tommy Mordaunt had produced a result 
which amused him. 

Smoking a short-stemmed pipe — habit of the 
plains — ^while Mordaunt rolled and lighted cigarettes, 
he listened to some of the reflections of the Cre- 
vonian, whom he had selected to be one of his chief 
assistants. Mordaunt had been in the army of the 
little kingdom, and regaled the West -Pointer with 
his contempt for the Crevonian sword. 

“If we kill one another,” he said, “we are per- 
fectly happy, unless we do it in a reasonable way. 
It is a curious thing about us, but we like to kill, we 
hate to die.” 

“Mortality is not popular,” smiled the American, 
“in any place with which I am familiar.” 

“But the Crevonian,” asserted Mordaunt, “is mis- 
erable unless he is getting himself in a pass where he 
no 


The Princess Olga 

must die — then he cries out against the result as if it 
were sacrilege.” 

“Maybe he is a theorist,” suggested Harding. “A 
theorist must never have a sense of humor.” 

“Humor!” cried the other. “There isn’t a trace 
of it in our kingdom.” 

“There is Colonel Mordaunt,” dissented Harding. 

“If I have any, it is the English of me. Do you 
think I have?” demanded the Crevonian, eagerly. 

“More than any Englishman I ever knew,” the 
other assured him, dryly. 

The Crevonian had that sublime faith in Harding 
which men working with him were likely to have, un- 
less they hated him for his cold deliberation and iron 
will. 

“If you say it, that is what makes it — it is so,” 
he replied, doubtfully. “ Nevertheless, it is the strain 
of my great-grandfather.” 

“Perhaps it is like grafting two sweet fruits to ob- 
tain one that is tart in the cross,” Harding said. 

“By gad! sir, it seems a terrible thing,” declared 
the Crevonian, gloomily, “that a man’s great-grand- 
father could be an Englishman and himself only one- 
eighth so.” 

“Not so dreadful as the thought,” smiled the 
American, “that if you follow in the path of your 
immediate ancestors your great-grandchildren will 
be only one-sixty-fourth.” 

Mordaunt looked down into future history thought- 
fully, his eye on the lighted end of his cigarette. 

“If I had more of that blood,” he said, hopefully, 
“perhaps I’d be a good soldier.” 

“The Englishman isn’t a good soldier. Tommy,” 
corrected the West- Pointer; “he is a good fighter. 
He is the poorest kind of soldier, because he thinks 

' III 


The Princess Olga, 

war is getting shot. Good soldiery is winning bat- 
tles without getting shot.” 

The Crevonian’s dark eyes stole a glance at the 
smooth, impassive face opposite him. 

“Do you think I’d ever make a good soldier as 
well as a good fighter?” he asked, anxiously. 

“Excellent! When you have mixed the English 
and Crevonian blood with our Yankee, your children 
will make better.” 

“Ah!” exclaimed the other; “if I could go back 
with you when you return.” 

“Unless I have to leave you here to attend to the 
work when I have quit,” assented Harding. 

Mordaunt got up, and strode back and forth im- 
patiently. 

“What is the use of it?” he asked. “What does 
it all amount to ?” 

“That is it,” agreed the American. “Of what use 
is Crevonia? And it will amount to less and less — 
never worth while.” 

“To me, doing this work with you,” declared the 
Crevonian earnestly, “it is a great joy — after you 
are gone — ” 

“There may be no need of staying,” answered 
Harding, quietly. “Who knows? The thing now 
is to have the work done — and then ofi to my coun- 
try. We are a bit practical there. Tommy. Do 
you suppose you could stand living with a people 
ninety-nine per cent, of whom think one is a ninny 
to court favors from a superior in rank, and all of 
whom consider that only a fool would offer his life 
in sacrifice of anything but a principle?” 

“It would be strange,” admitted the man of petty 
distinctions of caste. 

“Our work here first,” answered Harding, in the 

II2 


The Princess Olga 

calmly confident voice at which the dark eye sparkled. 
“Is our friend over in Borglitch ever going to die?” 

“Some day, some day,” murmured the Crevonian, 
in a sort of ecstasy of anticipation. 

“Tommy,” said Harding, quietly, “a man tried to 
kill me the other evening — ^to stab me.” 

Mordaunt leaped to his feet, his face working angry 
passion. 

“You would not tell me!” he cried, breathlessly. 

Harding did not answer the question. 

“What have they done to you?” he inquired, 
softly. 

“Only my greatest danger,” replied the Crevonian, 
darkly. 

“Humor?” laughed Harding. 

The other gave him a glance of reproach. 

“ Why did you not inform me ?” demanded the chief. 

“Nothing came of it,” returned the native, spread- 
ing his arms. “You have much on your hands. I 
thought I could keep you secure. I — Did I make 
a mistake?” he cried, shamefaced. 

“I don’t think so,” smiled Harding. 

“You will let me find him?” 

“No, Tommy,” was the answer, and Mordaunt 
understood by the tone of the reply that there was 
no need to take further action in that particular case. 

“There was a woman,” said Mordaunt. 

“Eve,” laughed Harding. 

“It is my weakness — known to be my weakness,” 
was the childlike apology. 

“It was foolish to tempt you. Tommy,” said 
Harding, in the quiet voice, and the dark eye of his 
aid shone brightly — “foolish to tempt you — from 
your strong or your weak side. A blind man should 
have known better.” 


113 


The Princess Olga 

“It was a woman,” repeated the other, hanging 
his head. Nevertheless, the radiance from Harding’s 
words was on his face. 

“What did she think was the temptation suffi- 
. cient?” smiled the American. 

“She did not tempt; she warned.” 

“Of our danger?” 

“Of us all — ^siiice it was yours,” was the earnest 
reply. 

“And you laughed?” 

“I laughed — afterwards,” declared Mordaunt. “It * 
seemed so preposterous that they could imperil you 
— I have so much faith in your — I don’t know what 
to call it,” he murmured, in a whisper that was 
nearly solemn. 

“She sent for you?” 

“ No, I was in the street ; it was dark. She came 
silently to my side. ‘Hushl’ she whispered. 

“She was light, with blue, dancing eye?” laughed 
Harding, in a voice not his own. 

“ I don’t know.” 

“ She was veiled ?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“ She was of round figure, but tall ?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Oh, Tommy,” declared Harding, with a little 
note of something strange and elusive, “were you 
blindfolded?” 

“It is my weakness,” apologized the Crevonian. 

“That you must not look at beauty?” 

“I was afraid.” 

“What did you do?” 

“I walked on hurriedly. I said nothing.” 

“And she?” 

“She followed, whispering.” 

114 


The Princess Olga 

Harding waited, the inscrutable smile at the cor- 
ners of his mouth. 

“She whispered all the time that I must have you 
go away — that your blood would be on my head — 
that if harm came to you” — he threw out his hand 
with an intense gesture — “she was desperately con- 
cerned.” 

“And you were afraid?” 

“I was afraid that if I looked at her she would 
read my eyes — she would know something from 
them. It is my weakness, when a woman smiles at 
me. She would have me think she was desperately 
anxious, in order to betray me into admitting some- 
thing. By gad! sir, I have my weakness,” he added, 
with pride, “but I know them — their tricks, their 
power to feel what men must reason. So I walked 
on. I did not look. I hurried, until she could not 
follow. She left me with a wail; but it did not de- 
ceive me.” 

Harding knocked the ashes out of his pipe, smiling 
at his faithful aid. 

“And it was true,” the Crevonian accused himself. 
“She was warning me of a real danger — ^he might 
have killed you. She was putting you on your 
guard against the assassin.” 

“I don’t think so. Tommy.” 

“What then?” 

“I don’t know. I am like you. I realize that 
things do not appear to us as to them. It is idle to 
seek the difference.” 

“She warned me,” muttered Mordaunt, thought- 
fully. 

“I think you dreamed,” smiled Harding. 

“ Dreamed — ^when her hair was in my face, making 
it run in thrills.” 

IIS 


The Princess Olga 

“A dream of what is to happen to-morrow?” 

“ To-morrow ?” 

“A woman is coming to the Concession.” 

Mordaunt stirred uneasily. 

“What brings her?” he asked, somewhat sullenly. 

“She may come to spy,” answered Harding, 
steadily. “She may be sent by those who employ 
our services — ^to see how we do our work. She may 
perform a service for their enemies. Who knows? 
But she is coming.” 

“The powers wish it?” asked Mordaunt, doubt- 
fully. 

“Now, I was not truthful,” declared Harding, 
with the sure note. “She comes because I wish it. 
Yet,” he added, coolly, “while I show her much of 
the Concession, she must not see what no other 
stranger would be permitted to see. You must have 
a care that apparently everything is free — every- 
thing that is reasonable, as usual; everything must 
go on as if there were no visitors ; there may be the 
sound of the new tools in the distance, not to be 
seen, to be heard; some blasting, perhaps — ^just as 
we should if there were no one.” 

He smiled again, with an expression that was very 
impressive, yet subtle. 

“As you command, sir,” replied Mordaunt, with a 
snap to his words that was significant of a peculiar 
confirmation of orders understood. 

“Tommy,” said Harding, quietly, “it is not neces- 
sary to add the ‘sir.’ In our country we never use 
it between equals, except,” he added, with the fine 
smile running around his lips, “in the military ser- 
vice.” 

The Crevonian flushed up in his dark skin at the 
affable reproof, glancing from the other’s easy car- 
116 


The Princess Olga 

riage to his eyes, to his brown, firm hand idling with 
the pipe. 

“I understand,” he stammered. 

“You have remarked. Tommy,” said Harding, 
with a slow note running through his words, “ that 
women feel what some men must reason.” 

Mordaunt shot an inquiry into the face before him. 

“I understand,” he repeated. 

“Just enough of the ordinary,” cautioned Har- 
ding, quietly, “to give one an opportunity to feel — if 
one is so disposed — not sufficient to warrant one to 
reason.” 

“ I understand,” replied the Crevonian for the third 
time. 

“And if there is such a thing in the Concession as 
a teapot,” said the chief, negligently, “you might 
have a table on the porch of my shack there, and 
biscuit. If it is too much trouble, don’t bother any- 
body with it.” 

. He gave a little laugh. 

“Remember, it is a woman who is calling — ^your 
weakness.” 


CHAPTER XII 


W HEN Madame Vaillant, in Harding’s car, passed 
through the entrance of the Concession, flanked 
with the gate-houses, like sentry-boxes, she gave a 
stifled murmur behind the flowing folds of her veil. 
While they rolled along the broad way within the 
island she sent her eye roving over all that was re- 
vealed, as he could tell by her draped head, which 
turned this direction and that expectantly — to the 
streets breaking through the trees from different 
sides; the clean walks, as in a park; the drinking 
fountain, with its gravelled, bed, neat and severe; 
and, on all hands, the marks of order and of organi- 
zation. Ahead were the general offices, with, per- 
haps, quarters for some of the administrative force, 
in admirable arrangement, so that one of them 
might command the view and the approach of all; 
the others, placed where there was an obvious con- 
tinuity of function as well as of site. They were 
new, plain, generally of a single story, but substan- 
tial, indicating that the construction was done for a 
long time. Somehow there was the suggestion, in 
arrangement and aspect, of a barracks, where one in 
command oversaw the whole, and others, in turn, 
played a lesser part of supervision. 

The car ran into a little square, stopping before 
the house that was foremost in position. In appear- 
ance it was no different from the others — a simple, 
rather rude little porch to give shelter from the sun 

ii8 


The Princess Olga, 

or rain, yet to obscure no sight of the surroundings; 
possibly space enough inside for one large room, 
surely for not more than two small ones. 

“ Have you ever been in the Concession before?” 
he had asked, as they rolled in. 

“This is my second visit to Crevonia,” she had an- 
swered, from behind the folds. 

“It is not much for show — purely for business,” 
he had continued. “If you had been here before 
you would notice changes — some of them, we think, 
improvements.” 

She had not answered, glancing around, as he was 
aware, to take it all in. It was impressive as indi- 
cating his hand, laid quietly but with power on the 
scene spread before her. 

Now he was on the ground, assisting her to alight. 

“There is my house, if it might interest you to see 
where I live,” he said. 

He was so pervasive there in spirit, his authority 
seeming to tower above the men, who acknowledged 
his presence respectfully, without display or bustle, 
that it was odd, as her slight shoulders betrayed 
with their gesture, that he should house himself in 
so narrow a space. Yet neither it nor the circum- 
stance seemed to lack dignity, which was in the at- 
mosphere. 

“ I could not run the car farther in to advantage,” 
he apologized. “If you will walk a short distance 
we shall come where you may see the general system, 
and where we may take a tram to any point you 
will.” 

Indeed, as they moved on, the full scheme opened 
upon her comprehension. There was the idea of an 
endless chain of motion and accomplishment, as he 
explained it in a manner to make it clear. Here all 
119 


The Princess Olga 

the traffic from Weissburg flowed in, curving one 
side of a circle, to where there were receiving depots 
and distributing stations — raw material, provisions 
to go in the commissary stores, other supplies for 
the men and the works. 

Avenues and alleys ran away through the trees. 
In some were the rails, where trolley-cars — not for 
passengers, for freight — sailed along swiftly, always 
in orderly detail. They were taking in the material 
consumed in the process or production of what was 
to come out. This product flowed out on the other 
side of the circle, where were the warehouses and 
shipping platforms. 

“ It comes in here, goes its way, through all those 
lanes and passages, each where it belongs,” he ex- 
plained, “and from as many directions all comes out 
in the new form over there, ready to be hurried 
forth to the world, for which it is all done, which 
pays for it all.” 

Concentrated here were many signs to show why 
that ceaseless traffic swelled along the Crevonian 
road to Weissburg. The electric - cars shot forth 
from the woods to the platforms, where their car- 
goes were transferred. They revolved on around 
the magic circle, taking new loads bound inside, per- 
haps; perhaps running empty, without a stop, until 
buried again among the trees. 

Everywhere men, each knowing his exact part to 
do, and doing it without noise or bustle, though 
alacrity was in the air; the cars humming; the 
wagons and carts busy; the horses pulling with 
vigor — all the life of the great place running evenly 
but powerfully. 

As he pointed out the features of the plan in 
operation here — the Concession’s clearing-house — 
120 


The Princess Olga 

she felt that fascination which had caught the pas- 
sionless Armitage when he beheld the engineer’s 
army, in anticipation of the near flight of the Presi- 
dent, boring through mountains, as in a fervid dream, 
and she drew a breath, long and absorbed. 

Then he outlined a wagon bed which he was de- 
signing, which might be transferred from car to its 
own running gear without the delay of reloading; 
and the implacable annihilation of time seemed to 
inspire a dread in the visitor. 

“Now,” he said, “if you would see where the work 
of making is done — this is the handling, very im- 
perfectly as yet, of what is made.” 

He led her farther, speaking to some one in the 
quiet tone, his steady glance giving half the com- 
mand, and immediately there rolled to them and 
stopped one of the cars. There were no accommo- 
dations for passengers — no seats, no hand-rails to 
which they might cling for support. Some quick 
arm had flung in a camp-stool for her. Harding 
helped her in, standing at her side, sure-footed, easily 
balanced, as their moving platform swung along 
and they swept swiftly around a curve into the 
shade under the branches of countless trees. He 
rode thus, swaying in a sort of rapture as if to music, 
while he drank in the notes of his machinery singing 
everywhere its strains of power, her gaze resting on 
his calm, smooth face in wonder until they stopped. 

“If you would like to see the mine,” he said — and 
when they were at the shaft an elevator, hanging 
over the profound pit under their feet, awaited them. 
What he wished was always at hand, and ready. 
She had the woman’s aversion to going down, down 
into a black hole, never ending, and she drew back. 
But he smiled. 


I2I 


The Princess Olga 

“There is little to see/’ he promised; “but there 
is absolutely no danger — you must let me be able to 
say — ^to think ’’ — ^he corrected himself, smiling — “that 
you went where no woman has ever descended.” 

Dropping, they plunged into a blackness which 
was thick with oppression, and she crowded nearer 
to his side. 

“Look,” he said, turning his own face up, where 
on high showed the pale light of the surface and 
over that the gleam of the sunshine. 

“So long as we go straight and keep our eyes 
open,” he said, and his voice had a curious inflec- 
tion, “we shall always see the light when we look 
for it.” , ■ 

She gave a start, her hand striking his. 

“It makes me feel as if I were going out of my 
own reach,” she murmured, awed. 

' “Not if we control the force on which we are 
borne; otherwise, yes,” he answered, his words carry- 
ing added significance in the darkness. 

“You could lift your veil,” he laughed. “No one 
can see you on this car — I can’t. When we are 
down in the electric light, those who will be around 
us have never been out of Crevonia; you have never 
been in; no one could recognize you.” 

At his allusion she gave a nervous tremor, of 
which he was fully aware. 

“If you raised it,” he said, quietly, “you would 
feel freer of breath.” And she put it up. He could 
not see; he felt the motion of her arm. 

Then they were at the bottom of the deep shaft, 
lights burning, but dimly, in the great passages lead- 
ing away from their level. 

“We must walk.” he said; but she shrank towards 
the car. 


122 


The Princess Olga 

“I have seen enough,” she exclaimed, after hesita- 
tion; “let us go up again.” 

“If you do not like it,” he agreed; and they were 
shooting up where the pale signal beckoned. 

“You could leave the veil up,” he assured her; 
“there will be none to know.” But long before they 
reached the top she had lowered it. 

They went another trolley journey, and she beheld 
great trees eaten through swiftly by hungry, scream- 
ing saws; a system of orderly, never-erring detail 
offering them up for sacrifice to the flashing steel, 
and sending forth the darkly red timber, damp and 
redolent of the bleeding woods. She saw where the 
men spread the new lumber until it should be season- 
ed; where from such piles they were drawing stores 
which flowed out to the clearing-house to begin the 
travel across the continent. 

Where the tall sticks, piercing the air, were felled, 
her always watchful eye took in the implements of 
achievement, which, somehow, she felt and showed 
had not been there till he had arrived to work his 
wonders of administration. A power-lift raised a 
great trunk lightly and slipped it on a moving plat- 
form, to be wafted away to the saws, which ate 
through the masses with such eagerness, calling a 
high, shrill cry for more. She looked at his hand as 
if it had performed the very feat. 

Then they walked through avenues which had 
been abandoned because the forests within had been 
stripped. They approached others which were open- 
ing before the attacks of axemen, ponderous ma- 
chines uprooting buried stumps where the new roads 
were making. These walks were of long time, over 
distances that made her breath come more quickly. 
But if he asked her whether she were tired, or re- 
123 


The Princess Olga 

minded her that when she was surfeited with the 
sameness of it all, they could readily cut across, by 
path or trail, to where they might take a trolley to 
carry them out, or wherever she wished to go, she 
had no thought of foregoing anything that was to be 
seen. Always she was willing to find more, and her 
eyes — for here in the heart of the island she had 
raised the veil again — paid him the tribute of attest- 
ing that she could marvel further at the work of his 
mind and will. 

Once she turned her footsteps into a lane cutting 
off at an angle from the others; but he laughingly 
warned her back. 

“In there,” he said, “are things forbidden to all. 
We have a secret process under experiment; it is for 
no one to see; not even my own people of the Con- 
cession, except those who are engaged with it.” 

She sought to read some covert meaning in the 
gray eye gazing back into hers so calmly; but there 
was nothing she could discover. 

“You have some of my secrets,” she said, laugh- 
ing, but uneasily. 

“These are not mine, or you might have them,” 
he averred, in a level tone; “but they are others’.” 

Then, as they stood there, they heard a high, dis- 
tant ring of steel, at which her face flushed all up, 
her eyes bright with a flash. 

“Some of our implements which are not for the 
world to understand now — ^which will be of interest 
and value when it is permitted to share them,” he 
said, with the faintest note of mockery. 

She raised her chin in a sort of haughty, cold in- 
quiry, gazing hard into his eyes; but he laughed 
lightly. 

“There are more secrets to great business under- 
124 


The Princess Olga 

takings than it would be well to let the world have,” 
he said; “and this is not much of an affair either.” 

She seemed to have it on her mind to fling some 
sharp word at him ; but she turned and followed him 
whither he led, saying nothing. 

And again, there was the far-away sound of what 
is like nothing else in the world so much as the 
lashes of countless whips snapping furiously. 

“It sounds,” he declared, coolly, “like musketry, 
doesn’t it? Or perhaps you are not familiar with 
it. It often reminds me of that quick, tigerish 
snarl.” 

The fine, mocking line curved into his lip. 

“I would take you there, but to approach un- 
heralded would be dangerous. We had a man, 
stumbling in heedlessly, killed within the week. It 
is a sort of rapid-fire gun blasting that we do, but 
nothing original, though not comfortable for stran- 
gers.” 

A little cry, hardly louder than the note of a bird, 
fell from her lip. Her cheek had no color; her 
fingers trembled never so slightly as she reached her 
hand to brush the brown sheen from her eyes where 
the veiling had slipped. 

“You have walked too far,” he said, with solici- 
tude. “You are tired. I must take you back.” 

She followed him without a word, until, with a 
turn, and not many hundred yards, they came upon 
another line of track. 

“Sit here a moment, please,” he begged her, and 
he strode further down the rails, stopping at a box 
on a tree. 

“I have telephoned; a car will soon be here,” he 
called, before he had reached her side again. It ar- 
rived while he was explaining to her silent attention 

125 


9 


The Princess Olga 

that the chief fault with the Concession was that it 
would give out. 

“If there were more of it,” he averred, “it would 
pay to install a plant which would make the opera- 
tion of the grant an economic pleasure. But the 
investment would not be warranted, since there 
must come an end of the mine, and the forest has 
not been cut wisely. It will be long before it can 
be properly restored, thenceforth to be gone over in 
a way to keep its output uniform, though never so 
large as it ought to be, to justify the best efforts 
that could be given to it.” 

For an instant there flashed in her dark eye an 
angry light that he should be playing with her, 
mocking her, and letting her see that he was doing 
no less; but she turned her back suddenly; he saw 
her shoulders yield to a tremor. 

“The car is waiting,” he said, in an untroubled 
tone, “and I know you are glad to get back; we 
have covered much ground.” 

But when they had flashed through the forest for 
several minutes he had the driver let them down, 
sending him on. For a while he studied the shining 
rails in the wake of the disappearing car. 

“I remembered,” he said, “that you had some- 
thing to tell me. You have not done so, and soon 
we should have been at headquarters.” 

Near them was a broad stump smoothly lev- 
elled. 

“Won’t you sit down and rest?” he inquired, 
pointing to it. 

She walked to it slowly, and sank down there 
with a weary, hopeless sigh. 

“Will you tell me?” he asked. 

She inclined her slim upper body forward, sway- 
126 


The Princess Olga 

itig a trifle, her eyes on the tips of her little boots. 
Her attitude was listless. 

“I don’t know how to tell you,” she said, lifelessly. 

He was looking away; and then her gaze fastened 
on a sight at which she straightened instantly. 
From one of the avenues came four men abreast. 
They were in the clumsy tunic of the Crevonian 
workmen; but they strode with an unmistakable 
swing to their shoulders, taking their steps with 
that full, rhythmic tread that is emphatic of unison 
— something done often and through long stretches 
under a vigilant eye that commands the fulfilment 
of a fixed measure of motion and power. They 
swung off into another path, still by fours, their 
time perfect, their carriage inspiring. 

His face in the other direction, he had not beheld 
them ; but still she kept her gaze where they had disap- 
peared , her features fascinated, but pale and disturbed. 

“Oh!” she cried, in a stifled voice, and he turned 
to her. 

“I wish you would tell me,” he urged, in low, 
steady tones. 

But she gave him a frightened, despairing look. ' 

“I cannot, I cannot,” she murmured, in agitation. 

He went over to a dying tree and thrust his hand 
into an opening gnawed by decay. 

“In my boyhood days,” he smiled, “we used to 
play at post-office in the trees — like this. If you can- 
not say it to me out loud, will you not leave a letter 
in the post-office?” 

He took an envelope fromhis pocket ,heldit a moment, 
a queer smile on his face, and drew forth its contents. 

“You can write it on this side,” he said. “See, it 
is blank. Place it in the enyelope — it is already ad- 
dressed. I will mail it for you; there.” 

127 


The Princess Olga, 

He fetched from his pocket a stub of a pencil, 
handing them all to her; and at sight of the bit of 
wood, no longer than half her little finger, she smiled 
a smile, half of defiance, half of pathetic resignation. 
This man, who was so strong in his works, so sure 
of his purpose, to have so pitiful a tool. Yet the 
thought of what he could achieve with any imple- 
ment he touched made her shiver. 

She held the materials for a moment, hesitating, 
then wrote rapidly. Not till she had started to 
place the sheet in the envelope did she recognize 
what paper she was using. Her eye sent him a 
fleeting, protesting glance, asking him, though her 
opened lips were motionless, “You preserved it?’' 
for it was the one of the message — the significant 
message — she had given him in the railway station 
on his departure from Paris. 

“I kept it,” he said, in a low voice; “I kept them 
all, though what I would have could never be. 
You do not mind? It could do no harm. Let me 
post it,” he added, slowly, smiling. 

With a grave, dignified bearing, he went to the 
letter-box, mailed her envelope, and took it forth 
again. He read it, leaning against the tree, and 
holding that position for some time afterwards. 

“ Her Highness, the Princess Olga, through me, asks you 
to help her.” 

He slipped it into the envelope, replacing it in his 
pocket. 

“There is nothing that I could do for the Princess 
Olga,” he said, quietly. “I should not care to in- 
terest myself in her affairs if I were free to do so, 
and I am not. I have my work here; you have 
seen what it is. When it is done I shall make no 
128 


The Princess Olga 

more engagements in Europe. There will be noth- 
ing,” he added, slowly, ” to keep me, Madame — ^Vail- 
lant.” 

At the deliberate allusion to the reason — that she 
was not free to receive his addresses, if she might 
care for them — her face flooded crimson. She thrust 
up her hand hurriedly at the drapery, down again 
over her burning cheek. 

“You would not do it for me?” she faltered. 

“Not for anybody,” he answered, with decision. 
“From what I have heard, it would be impossible in 
any event.” 

“Heard from whom?” she demanded, her words 
on fire. 

“For one, from her cousin. Prince Alexander,” he 
replied, dryly. 

“You would not do it when your work here was 
finished?” she asked, now pale. 

“Not at any time,” he said. 

“Not at my appeal?” 

He looked at her, saying nothing; there was no 
waver in his glance. 

She stood up, her lip trembling, her hand feeling 
aimlessly, weakly for the veil. A little sob broke in 
her throat. 

He held his gaze on her; it was straight, firm, un- 
yielding. 

“If you will walk around the corner,” he said, 
calmly, “we shall be near the offices and my quarters. 
I hope you will have a cup of tea.” 

In silence they went along the rails until they 
came out on the circle. 

“A cup of tea on the porch,” he said, “and then 
it will not take a quarter of an hour to drive you 
back to Weissburg.” 


129 


CHAPTER XIII 


W ITH his own hand he brought her the tea-tray 
— everything very simple : an earthenware pot ; 
plain cups, the material selected entirely for utility; 
a copper lamp. She was at a tension both of mind 
and frame, and it would have been useless to at- 
tempt to disguise her feelings. She began with the 
tea, her fingers shaking, her mien uncertain. 

“You could uncover your face here and be much 
more comfortable — not to speak of taking your tea,’’ 
he said. “Facing as you do, no one could see you. 
If any one were here, no one in the Concession ob- 
serves what is not his affair.” 

There might have been a warning in his words 
that all this was arranged with premeditation, and 
for the moment, as her dark eyes were cleared of 
their disguise, she shot him a defiant look. But he 
paid no attention to her protest, offering to help her 
if there were anything he could do. She lapsed into 
despondency. 

“Will you have cream?” she asked, listlessly. 

“I am sorry to say there is none in the Conces- 
sion,” he said. “We live here with few luxuries. I 
hope the lack of it will not spoil your cup.” 

x\gain he might have been informing her that here 
were men undergoing a preparation for a still simpler, 
perhaps harder life, as of those in camp or bivouac. 
She lifted her lashes, the dark light behind them 
rising once more; but, as his manner seemed to in- 
130 


^ The Princess Olga 

dicate, it was idle for either of them to do more 
than pretend that there was nothing of significance 
in all these eloquent signs and suggestions. 

“I am afraid you have not enjoyed your visit as I 
hoped you might,” he said. 

There was no trace of mockery in his thoughtful 
words or on the serious face. 

“The experience has been too long drawn out; 
you have been fatigued by it. Perhaps the tea will 
refresh you.” 

She put her cup down with a little crash as it 
rattled against another where her unsteady hand 
had placed it. She was done with it. 

“Would you see how a lumberman lives?” he 
asked, his firmly set head indicating the house 
within. He pushed the door so that she might 
enter, and she followed to the opening. 

The room was devoid of ornament, unless the floor- 
rugs — they were gaudy blankets — could be dignified 
as such. In the centre of the room a desk, over it a 
drop-light of electric bulb; a flat couch, not of 
leather, but of hide; a couple of chairs; on the walls, 
nothing. The almost bare, rugged arrangement was 
instinct with the air which sat on his shoulders and 
hovered around the smooth, muscled jaw. She 
shivered slightly. 

“Don’t you like the blankets?” he asked, nat- 
urally. “They are Navajoes — genuine, made by 
the Indians in their ancient way. These are souve- 
nirs of my days in the army on the frontier when I 
was a young lieutenant. I had them from red men. 
There is another of which I am particularly fond — ” 

He crossed the room and flung open the door of 
the next one, very small, as she could see, with a 
single bed like a military cot. 

131 


The Princess Olga 

“The one there has an interest for me above the 
others/’ he said. 

It lay before the cot, red-striped and worn. Pull- 
ing it out, he cast it at her feet. 

“Possibly it nearly cost me my life once,” he went 
on, in the calm, self-possessed voice. “It was in 
New Mexico. We had been rounding up a band 
which had gone on the war-path. When we had 
them cornered, our troops standing above them on a 
little hill, covering them with carbines, I was sent 
^own with a platoon to relieve them of their arms. 
They sat squat, folded in their blankets, sullenly 
waiting for us to take them. The chap in this one 
had his chin on his breast. I was directly in front 
of him, while my men went along the line gathering 
up their arms. He lifted his head, threw this 
blanket clear of his shoulders, and started to raise 
his rifle, which had been concealed underneath, 
slowly, without excitement. It was not certain 
what he meditated till his eye blazed. In that mo- 
ment he thrust the barrel out — ” 

She was not looking at him reciting the incident 
calmly; her eyes were on the blanket, bleached in 
one place, as if from a spot that had been removed. 
Color had run into her cheek and out again; her 
slim form gave the vibrant quiver which it was 
wont to do under emotion which she could not re- 
press. 

He had stopped, turning as if to lead her away, 
when she put up a little hand with an imperative 
gesture. 

“The rest,” she said, in smothered accents. 

“I had an orderly who, always at my heels, was 
very watchful of my needs — whenever they might 
arise. I don’t know whether the Indian intended to 
132 


The Princess Olga 

kill me in particular, or to fire aimlessly in blind 
rage. One can never be sure of what conditions 
actually existed in a case where the actions on them 
were quick and somewhat desperate. The orderly 
killed him in his tracks.” 

She looked at his face, unmoved, and again at the 
blanket, drawing away from it. 

“I wanted the orderly to have the trophy — the 
blanket — ^but he begged me to keep it. I have had 
it ever since.” 

“And of him — the orderly?” she asked, eagerly. 

“ He was with me years later, when we were string- 
ing the bridges for the Transcontinental through the 
Rio Grande region. I sent him out one afternoon to 
the extreme end of some work hanging over a deep 
ravine, with an order to the men who were engaged 
there. He was very sure of foot, and very swift, 
running along a stringer. When he started to re- 
turn, he twisted his head back to say something 
more to those he had left, missed his step, and went 
d own . It was several hund red feet , ” he added , quietly. ‘ 

She looked up at him from under the dark lashes, 
her shoulders in the tremor. 

He stepped into the bedroom to open a drawer, 
and brought forth a battered silver watch. 

“This was his,” he said. “I believe he had run 
away from his home in the East for some fault he 
had committed there. He was a good servant — very 
faithful. I was fond of him.” 

Her eye, straying away from this man of iron, 
who had his tender sentiments encased in adamant, 
fell on a sword hanging in a scarred scabbard on the 
wall. She shrank back from the sight of it, an ac- 
cusing light rising on her face where there had been 
one of agitation. 


133 


The Princess Olga 

“There is another old friend,” he said, reading her 
charge. “I wore it from the time I came out of the 
academy till I left the army, and again in our little 
Spanish war. So it stays with me — ^will to the end, 
though war is no longer my business.” 

He characterized the calling deliberately and with 
a somewhat harsh accent. 

“All these things,” he added, smiling faintly, 
“serve to remind me that I am growing old. You, 
at twenty -four, perhaps, cannot feel what it is to 
arrive near the turn, madame.” 

She did not accept the challenge; the agitation 
was on her again; the sight of the sheathed sword 
had driven everything else from her mind, for her 
eyes sought it inquiringly, resentfully. 

“When madame is ready to depart,” he said, in 
French, “will she care for the Navajoe as a souvenir ?” 

“Or the sword?” she flashed back at him, her 
little teeth grinding. 

“Not the sword,” he smiled. “In these days it 
has little use anywhere, least of all for a woman.” 

He scanned her with the over-long gaze. 

“If I were you,” he said, slowly, “I should tell 
the Princess Olga what we were agreed on the other 
day — ^that she is fortunate to be quit of such folly 
as play kingdoms. The absurdity of such things 
impresses you and me; her friends should see that 
she takes the same view of sense.” 

Her lip was neither tremulous nor defiant — it was 
sullen. 

“Would she not listen?” he asked. 

“Why should she forfeit, except under compul- 
sion, her rights?” she demanded, with a sudden, 
vehement energy. 

“There it is — compulsion,” he replied, calmly. 

134 


The Princess Olga 

“For kingdoms like Crevonia there is no sovereign 
but the bankers. The great powers are not always 
above the money-bags, though people will delude 
themselves into believing that royal dynasties are 
divine institutions. How shall the little ones — the 
puny, useless ones — be different when they have no 
existence, in fact, save through the failure of the 
greater to agree among themselves which may have 
the morsel to gulp down?” 

She would not answer the question in behalf of 
her princely mistress, staring at him uncompromis- 
ingly. 

“To whom would she go?” he derided. 

“Why not to her own people?” she demanded, 
under her breath. 

“In their tunics that are night-gowns — eating their 
black bread?” he queried, contemptuously. 

“Do you despise them,” she cried, with a passion- 
ate protest, “because they have nothing to eat but 
their black bread ?” 

“Not for the bread,” he answered, calmly. “God 
knows it is of little consequence, in the greater con- 
siderations, whether a man’s choice is black bread. 
But if it is his necessity, does not this establish the 
fact of his impotence to cope with the grand forces? 
Think of the brutal legions on either side of helpless 
Crevonia! Think of the hundreds on hundreds of 
millions of that money power in the great capitals 
of Europe! All this decrees that Crevonia shall be 
what others will have her — and that,” he added 
grimly, “is a door-mat for lofty feet; there is no 
escape.’’ 

Her resentful mien did not yield to his reason ; her 
eyes glittered back to his, calm. 

“And if it were not so,” he went on, with a gesture 

135 


The Princess Olga 

of impatience and intolerance, “of what use to have 
it ? What could the Princess Olga make of it ? 
What will Alexander?” 

“Ah!” she hissed, suddenly, burning him through 
with her dark orbs, “then it is for Alexander you 
work! Your bankers,” she cried, “who are omnip- 
otent — they have sent you here to perpetuate a 
wrong! Olga is nothing; nor Alexander; yet you 
work for him — at their bidding; you will seat him 
where he should not be! Though the people of Cre- 
vonia will have none of him, you will force him on 
the throne and hold him there! And you have lied 
to me!” she cried, triumphantly. “You said in 
Paris you knew nothing of him; you ridiculed him 
while you insulted the others, but all the time you 
were doing for him — you lied to me!” she repeated, 
breathlessly. “It made no difference; I was a 
woman, friend and supporter of a woman, princess 
in fact and queen by right, but weak and helpless, 
because your bankers so will. Monsieur,” she add- 
ed, in French, with a sudden, cold, distant dignity, 
“I shall be pleased to have you take me home.” 

“Madame Vaiflant,” returned Harding, calmly, “I 
was not aware that I had announced myself an au- 
thority as to the succession of the throne of Cre- 
vonia. I recall that I have mentioned Prince Alex- 
ander to you as he mentioned to me your friend, 
the Princess Olga. It is possible — no doubt you are 
right in saying so — I denied that I had a share in 
the plans for the succession of Alexander. If I did, 
I will not repeat the denial.” 

He smiled at her indulgently, so that she bit her lip 
at the fathomless expression of the clean -hewn face. 

“To take madame back to Weissburg,” he said, in 
the even tones, “I am at her service.” 

136 


The Princess Olga 

She let down the veil with fingers again shaking. 

“Madame,” he asked, still in French, “wftl not ac- 
cept the blanket as a souvenir of the Concession?” 

She repelled the offer with her silence, standing 
straight and stiff. 

“The car is ready,” he said, taking up his gloves, 
and, with his hand on the outer door, waiting for 
her to pass before him as he bowed gravely. 

As the car ran up the broad esplanade to the 
Crevonian highway neither spoke. When it shot 
out into the white dust raised by the interminable 
traffic he closed the throttle gradually, as if he did 
not like the way in which the engines were running, 
then opened it again, their throb responding to some 
change which he had worked in their transmission of 
the fleeting power. 

“I hope,” he said, at last, “that you do not regret 
your afternoon. It is interesting to us who do the 
work. I doubt if it has many attractions for the 
mere visitor.” 

“I am very glad I came,” she responded, in a tone 
that was submissive to her will. 

“By next year,” he continued, “we should have 
the property doing the best that is possible under 
the circumstances. If you are still in Weissburg I 
shall hope that you will come again, say in the 
spring, to see the further progress we have made.” 

“America will have no charms to lure you back 
before then ?” she flashed, satirically, from behind the 
folds. 

“I think not,” he answered, simply. 

Her composure was not restored, for at his reply 
her lips murmured behind their screen as if wearily. 

“I am very sorry if you are tired,” he said. 

Of a sudden she sat erect, her carriage tense. 

137 


The Princess Olga, 

“Listen,” she said; “there was something else I 
had to tell you.” But she paused. 

He held his eye on the traffic ahead, seeking the 
rifts through which his car might dart. 

“Do you listen?” she exclaimed, with a mingling 
of recklessness, resolve, and shame. 

“Always,” he replied, steadily, his glance not 
turning. 

“Whether you deceived me or not,” she ran on, 
quickly, “I deceived you.” 

“Once?” he smiled, sardonically. 

To that question she paid no heed. 

“You remember the letter — the one in Paris?” she 
asked. 

He inclined his head, his lips closing grimly on 
that blow delivered at his hopes. 

“I signed it,” she faltered; “I — ” 

She heard him lock his strong teeth; but he said 
nothing. 

“ I wished you to know that I was — that I was not 
what you thought me.” 

“I understood your message,” he replied, sternly. 

“That Monsieur Vaillant — the message was not 
entirely true,” she trembled. 

“You were not, in fact, married?” he demanded, 
the ripping note tearing the last word. 

“That I was — ^that he is dead,” she murmured, in 
a voice that was pathetic for her shame, if he had 
cared for anything but the unexpected, the joyful 
news. 

Her hand lay in her lap, moving spasmodically. 
He brought his down on it, holding it in a clasp of 
intensity. 

“I thank you for telling me,” he said, in a deep 
voice; “I thank God for the fact.” 

138 


The Princess Olga 

“No, no,” her smothered words returned to him. 
Then he cast his gray eye on her; it was hungrily, 
fiercely jealous only of her freedom. 

“You are not promised to some one else?” he de- 
manded, between his teeth. 

“Not — committed to any person,” she hesitated. 

He gave a little, strong laugh, carrying a ring of 
confidence. 

“Then you are mine,” he said. 

“No, no,” she repeated; “it cannot be; it will 
never be — never.” 

“Nothing else will be — can be,” he declared, in 
low triumph. 

“Never, never!” she exclaimed, in the accents of 
shame. “You have refused to aid my friend; you 
turn your back on her distress — on my appeals for 
her — but I have been unwilling that you should be 
deceived in this one thing. What you say is im- 
possible, since my life is devoted — must be given to 
the righting of the wrongs of her Highness.” 

“It makes no difference,” he replied. 

“No, no,” she cried again; “never!” 

“We are at the gate,” he answered, quietly. 

He leaped down to assist her to the ground. 

“When my work here is done I will come for you,” 
he said ; and she was trembling from head to foot. 

Again she denied him, now not weakly, nor in 
alarm, but with passionate vehemence. 

Once more he laughed — a short bugle-note of 
victory. 

“I love you,” he said. 

He ascended his car, driving back to the Conces- 
sion slowly. 


CHAPTER XIV 


H arding waited for another message from 
Madame Vaillant, but none reached him. 
Time after time he drove through the streets of 
Weissburg; there were no more careless boys to be 
run down ; no token came in other fashion. A week 
passed; a month. He had no word. 

Then he must signal for one. On an afternoon, al- 
most in front of the house where he had taken her 
up for her journeys in the car, its machinery got into 
trouble. He climbed down and tinkered at gear 
and valves. For twenty minutes he busied himself 
with them, tested them. They were not right, and 
he returned to his repairs. Again the same story, 
until he began to take the mechanism apart. 

The passing Weissburgers stopped to watch, talk- 
ing in their guttural, grew tired of efforts that came 
to nothing, and wandered on in their phlegmatic 
way. Still he plodded. Dusk came on, and he had 
not succeeded in adjusting the difficulty. He con- 
tinued patiently at the work. 

It was growing dark. He climbed to the seat, 
threw on the power, and there was the throb of the 
engines, with the loud, confused whir which precedes 
the propulsion of an automobile ; but the car did not 
start. Once more he descended, lighting his search- 
lights to warn others against coming into collision 
with him while he was stalled for no one could say 
how long. As the shadows of night settled, a fine 
140 


The Princess Olga 

smile of confidence played around the straight 
mouth. Madame Vaillant had cautioned him against 
Weissburg in late hours. He was there; he might 
remain indefinitely. 

His method of exciting anxiety when he could not 
interest had its reward. A stranger passing close to 
him spoke without checking his steps. 

“If monsieur’s car should be adjusted sufficiently 
to run to where it belongs,” he said, “he might find 
there what he seeks here.” 

Then she knew that there had been nothing the 
matter with it! She had comprehended that he 
would continue to disregard her admonition until 
assured that he should hear from her! Straightway 
he drove out to the Concession, travelling at a mod- 
erate speed, and encountering nothing of moment. 

Her message was left at the watch-house to be de- 
livered to him within; and, curiously enough, she 
repaid him in his own coin with her boldness in 
signing her name, Madame Vaillant, to the note. 
She agreed to meet him, not in Weissburg, not in 
daylight, but at night on the Crevonian road. 

It was after nine when he strode out from the Con- 
cession, taking the highway, lying white under a full 
moon, towards Weissburg. He walked carelessly, 
peering on neither side with noticeable interest. His 
shadow stretched far ahead always to inform any one 
that he took the middle of the way, ignoring possible 
opportunity to avoid giving advance information of 
his coming ; but his hands were in his coat-pockets. 

After a while he stopped where he expected her. 
There approached a figure of low stature, and Har- 
ding, still standing in the whitened stretch, soon made 
out the young, stupid face, with the wolf-like teeth, 
of a peasant boy. 

141 


10 


The Princess Olga 

The courier, arriving, said nothing, and Harding’s 
thought of the situation was that in this part of the 
world it seemed natural for every one to play easily 
the part of spy or some r61e of mystery. Without 
hesitation he moved at the side of the guide, who 
turned on his heel, retracing his course. Harding 
made a brief effort to converse on the beauty of the 
night ; but he had not been long enough in the coun- 
try to master much of the Crevonian language — of its 
patois, which the lad spoke, nothing at all. He con- 
tented himself with marching whither he was led. 

At last the other stopped, whistling softly. The 
answer was a far-away, light rustling of leaves; and 
when the man looked to see what would be the next 
act or signal of his youthful companion, the boy was 
gone. A moment later Harding beheld Madame 
Vaillant, her face a little pale, her eye bright under 
the moonlight, gazing at him from an opening in the 
growth at the road-side. For the first time he re- 
moved his hands from his pockets, crossing to her 
without haste, his face smiling, not confidence, nor 
daring, but sincere welcome. Nevertheless, his words 
were more assured. 

“Madame Vaillant,’’ he said, by way of greeting. 
Then, eagerly, “Again!’’ 

He had stretched forth his hand for its clasp, and 
she would have withdrawn hers ; but he ran it through 
his arm, so that, in the very movement, they were 
strolling as they had done in the Garden of the 
Nations, she leaning against him lightly, yet as if he 
supported her weight. 

For several paces they went on in silence, till he 
checked their course, as he might have done to listen 
while he stood in the silence of the night. 

“What is it?’’ she asked, nervously. 

142 


The Princess Olga 

‘‘I like to feel the beating of your heart against 
my arm,” he answered, simply, and she flinched. 

They went on again, her feet apparently dragging 
her back if he had not carried her so easily. 

‘‘I wanted to see you,” he said. “Why did you 
keep me waiting so long?” 

A faint, mirthless smile ran over her upper face. 

“I have not sent for you because you asked me 
to,” she said, “but because I wished to see you.” 

“Your wish was mine,” he replied. 

“For different reasons,” she answered, with a little 
shiver. 

“Whatever yours,” he declared, “I am grateful 
for it, since it enables me to see you.” 

She gave him neither encouragement nor dis- 
claimer. 

“Where are we now?” he asked, in a tone reveal- 
ing that he knew perfectly well. 

“In the Princess Olga’s grant,” she answered, the 
slim form betraying a tremor against his sleeve. 

“Wherever you will,” he said. 

They went on farther, and he made no comment on 
the distance they travelled within — neither slackened 
nor quickened their pace. 

“ Were you displeased at my little ruse of the car ?” 
he asked. 

“I am glad that you are here,” she said, with a 
sort of steadying of her tones as if by will. 

She was leading him to some particular spot, for 
at times she pressed him to the right or left as the 
paths bent. He was guided willingly. 

At last there was a bench, rustic, but old and long 
unused, for it settled perceptibly, creaking under 
them as they rested on it. Before them was an 
open space not larger than a fair-sized drawing- 
143 


The Princess Olga 

room; back of it high shrubs; to the right, whither 
they had been moving, the winding walk; behind 
them trees. 

“What a perfect night!” he said, waiting for her 
to speak. 

“This is the Princess Olga’s castle,” she said. He 
thought she made an effort to moisten her lips. 

“If it were always like this,” he smiled, “I could 
envy her.” 

She looked down before her, her fingers running 
nervously over the fabric of her gown. 

“You wished to speak to me of her,” he said, 
quietly. 

“To make another appeal,” she answered, quickly. 
“You have never listened, you have always denied 
me, laughing away the truth or scorning anything 
but the practical — the commercialism, the sordid- 
ness, the baseness of the conditions — the bankers,” 
she added, bitterly. 

“My child,” he answered, gravely, “those condi- 
tions are the truth. It is not to be laughed away.” 

She threw out her hand with a passionate objec- 
tion. 

“Will you hear me?” she demanded. 

“Whatever you say,” he replied, calmly. 

With a thoughtful mien he heard her recital of the 
claims of the Princess whose advocate she was; and 
if he was familiar with the circumstances, he did not 
indicate his knowledge or lack of it. She told him 
how Olga’s line was the most direct of the royal 
heritage; how there was neither law nor custom to 
bar female succession; how, in fact, the grandmother 
of her own grandfather had ascended the throne un- 
challenged; that Olga’s grandfather had been de- 
prived of the crown by the army; he had contested 
144 


The Princess Olga 

the usurpation of another ; and his house had suffered 
expulsion from Crevonia as a penalty for its con- 
tumacy. Intervening powers had confirmed the 
banishment, with the exception of the Neutral Zone, 
which, with small revenues from the treasury, was 
granted to the family. 

She told her story in behalf of the exiled Princess 
well, refraining, during the summing of the historical 
facts, from outbursts of passion or anger. But when 
she had finished, and paused to see if he were con- 
vinced of the justice of the claims, his unmoved 
countenance fired her to a hot protest. 

“The wrong of it!” she exclaimed, the light from 
her eyes streaming into his. “The injustice! The 
cowardice!” she ran on, in a trembling wrath. “Be- 
cause the Princess is a woman, lacking the strength 
to fight as a man could for the right — ^with no bankers 
to draw on, friendless in every court in Europe, de- 
nied by all those who have ears only for the com- 
mands of the rich and the powerful — even by those,” 
she whispered, “who love — ” She broke off, waving 
aside Harding’s declared devotion with a gesture of 
repudiation. 

“But if all that you say is true,” he asked, in the 
tone of composure, “what then? Grant that her 
claim is the clearest, that, as such things go in royal 
procedure, she should have the crown, what then?” 

His voice had been one of polite tolerance for the 
conventionalities of sovereignty; it shaded into a 
sardonic scorn. “A princess proposes; a banker dis- 
poses. There is no power to enforce what you call 
her right — frankly, if the question resolves itself pure- 
ly into that consideration, an American does not 
concede the right of a prince or a princess to de- 
termine the destinies of a people. But if there were 

145 


The Princess Olga 

that right, failing the possibility of power to enforce 
it, what shall the Princess Olga, or you, or any one 
accomplish ?’' 

She had been straining her vision to his, and now 
she came so close to him that her hair was in his 
face, as Mordaunt had described with a thrill. 

“But there is the power,” she breathed, “if there 
is not one to nullify it — the only one to be feared — 
you,” she added, in solemn, fearful tones. 

His head gave a little gesture of dissent, but she 
would not cease. 

“You have many of my secrets,” she said, under 
her breath. “I must give you another — not Ma- 
dame Vaillant’s, but the Princess Olga’s.” 

“It is better not,” he declared, sharply. “There 
is nothing that can be gained.” 

But she would. 

“The army,” she whispered; “it took away; it will 
restore. On the death of the King it will rise and 
declare for Olga. Then Alexander, who is the 
choice of the sovereign, will have no footing — no 
more than my grandfather, who was thrust out by 
the army.” 

“If Alexander is thus disposed of,” he said, with 
an unresponsive countenance, “what more is there 
to do, so far as the wishes of Crevonia are con- 
cerned ?” 

“You know — you know,” she repeated, “that, 
in some fashion, Alexander has information of the 
plans of the army, for he has arranged to have other 
assistance at hand — mercenaries,” she breathed, her 
eye flashing in the direction of the Concession. 

He looked at her somewhat in commiseration. 

“Poor child,” he said, “you are wasting your life 
in the cause of your forlorn Princess. Nothing that 
146 


The Princess Olga, 

I can see could help her — nothing that any clear 
reason and cold judgment could see.” 

“But if there were no interference on behalf of 
Alexander, after the army — Crevonia has excluded 
him,” she exclaimed; “if the nation were permitted 
to decide for itself, it would be the Princess Olga.” 

He shook his head slowly. 

“If the troops secreted in the Concession, ready to 
take the field when the King dies, should not march,” 
she urged, feeling for his fingers and clasping them 
tightly. “If they should not move, should not lift 
a hand, there need be nothing else. If there were no 
one to lead them — one on whom the fate of Alexander 
hangs,” she begged in his ear, “it would all end 
there. The bankers do not care — the powers do not 
care — ^who sits on the throne, in fact, provided they 
work their will with Crevonia.” 

‘ Why would the Princess Olga sit there, then?” 
his voice rasped. 

“Oh, the wrong, the injustice — to a woman!” she 
cried. 

“Madame Vaillant,” said Harding, calmly, “can- 
not you make yourself see that, if the real authority 
— not the army, not Crevonia — has decreed, so must 
it be?” 

At his immovability, she made a hopeless, desper- 
ate gesture. 

“You do not concede the distinction of rank,” she 
ran on, wildly, clinging to his hand, her eyes stream- 
ing above her white, disordered face. “I appeal to 
you for this woman — this poor, weak, injured 
woman!” 

“Madame,” he replied, “there is nothing to be 
done; certainly nothing for me to do.” 

“I implore you — the woman you declare you love 
147 


The Princess Olga, 

implores you — to help this defenceless, wronged 
woman!” 

“Nothing,” he repeated. 

She stared at him with wondering eyes that he 
could be so indifferent to her passionate plea. Then, 
in an ecstasy of appeal, she pressed his hand in both 
of hers. 

“Then listen to the last I can say,” she declared. 
“You have vowed that you love me. Well, I swear 
this' to you: what you wish could never be. See 
how I am honest with you now, if never before. It 
could never be. There are reasons which make it 
impossible — reasons,” she murmured, her lashes 
sinking down swiftly, “which, if you knew them, 
would suffice to convince you that you would never 
wish to marry me. But you say you love me. If 
you will do this for me — so little for you, the giant — 
if you will not permit the power which lurks against 
her in the Concession to be exerted, or let it be ex- 
ercised by another, if you will go to the army which 
will be hers and lead it — you would — could — make 
of it the power to hold her throne for her — ” 

“Of what use?” he interrupted, gravely. 

“If nothing more, the right!” she cried. “If you 
would do this, though it failed, though it cost her 
not only the crown of which she is robbed, but what 
little they have left her — if you would lead it, though 
to defeat — for the right,” she sobbed, “I swear to 
you that I would love you, that I would worship 
you, that, with my last breath, I should pray to Our 
Father to be good to you as you had been to this 
poor, helpless woman whom I serve.” 

“Madame,” he said, calmly, “it could be of no 
use.” 

“I pray to you!” she choked. 

148 


The Princess Olga, 

He made a little gesture of his head to indicate the 
utter futility of all this ; and the movement, the quiet 
smile of confidence lying on his face, maddened her 
to a cry, strangling before it was uttered. 

“Then there is no more to offer?” she gasped. 

“No more was needed to make me love you,” he 
answered, gravely. 

But she put away his declaration with a repulse of 
her slight form, quivering cruelly. 

“If madame will permit me to escort her to the 
castle — or where she wishes to go,” he said, gently. 

“No!” she exclaimed. Then, “No,” she faltered, 
her head hanging in a shamed way. 

“Do not feel,” he urged, with a protecting gravity 
that increased the trembling of her slight form, 
“that anything you have said has put an indignity 
upon you. You must remember that the one to 
whom you have spoken loves you — what you have 
said seems to him to be the natural outpourings of a 
pure, innocent heart. It is very dear to me, though 
I am unable to see any of this problem in the light 
which appears to you. But I understand what you 
feel. I do not agree with you. I would have you 
feel otherwise. Some day,” he smiled, softly, “you 
will. Will you not let me take you to the castle?” 
he asked, in low tones. 

“No,” she repeated, her words dying in her 
throat; “our lives are apart.” 

She pointed in the direction whence they had 
come. Reading her gesture as a command to leave 
her, he surveyed her with a lingering gaze of calm 
confidence, as if he would convince her despite her 
unreasoning will. She made an effort to cry out her 
command again, but her lips would not serve her 
purpose. He started to speak, saw that it were bet- 
149 


The Princess Olga 

ter to say nothing more, and turned to obey her. 
He found himself facing two tall men, in a sort of 
household uniform, holding rifles levelled at his 
breast. 

In the first glimpse of them, his eye running along 
the barrels shining under the moonlight, he threw 
his figure erect, his features sternly iron, as if pre- 
pared to receive their fire. 

“Madame,” he said, not lifting his gaze from the 
men, “has at last succeeded in accomplishing my 
assassination.” 

Her smothered cry of indignation and anger at his 
charge informed him that he was to become only 
their prisoner. He gave a little laugh of mockery, 
his figure returning to its natural carriage, his whole 
mien altered. Ignoring the soldiers thenceforth, he 
turned to her. 


CHAPTER XV 


M adame VAI leant,” he said, and contem- 
plated her with a sort of affable irony. Under 
the scrutiny she became more confused than she had 
been immediately preceding her betrayal of him to 
those before whose guns he now stood carelessly. 
She had been pale before; now, as could be clearly 
seen under the light from above, a full flow of color 
painted her profile. Her eye roved the ground, her 
lashes showing dark and, he thought, beautiful on 
her cheek. 

“Madame Vaillant,” he repeated, “in your effort 
to rid the Concession of me — ” 

“Not the Concession,” she broke in, hurriedly, 
eagerly, “but Crevonia.” 

“ In the effort to be rid of me we have an excellent 
example of the futility of all that you plan, all that 
you would achieve.” 

She lifted her lids, trying to look defiance, but 
showing an alarm for what he might have to reveal. 

“It is possible that you might have killed me” — 
and she flinched at the word, spoken passionlessly 
— “but not at all probable. In the fulfilment of 
your conspiracy to have my departure arrested, you 
yet stood very near me; so near, madame,” he added, 
with a smile of derision, “that, in the event of ex- 
treme peril, I should have been able to seize you and 
use you for a shield against your own weapons direct- 
ed at me. No doubt, if there had been need, I 

151 


The Princess Olga 

should have done this. Your men would not have 
dared to fire lest they should hit you. At the same 
time they would have been defenceless against my 
attack on them.” 

He smiled again, the subtle smile of scorn on his 
lip. 

“I could have killed them both, of course, in the 
instant I was secure behind you.” 

He slipped his hand in either pocket, and brought 
out two revolvers, eying them whimsically, as if he 
were illustrating an amusing experiment in a class- 
room, paying no attention to the others with their 
raised rifles, heeding nothing but her look of chagrin 
and the point which he wished to make clear. 

He laid the weapons on the seat, all glittering in 
the moonlight, and went on: 

“But I question if it would have been necessary 
to kill them. Holding you in front of me, and back- 
ing away, I should have drawn you with me — always 
compelling them to stand where they were under my 
aim — until I was at a sufficient distance to feel safe 
for a dash. It seems to me that, in that way, escape 
would have been easy. It is not likely that they 
could hit me after I released you and began to run. 
I have seen Crevonians shoot, never with true aim. 
In any event, though I had surrendered you, my 
hostage, I had always my revolvers as a last resort.” 

He pointed to them, lying neglected, as things 
with which, under the circumstances, he could dis- 
pense. 

‘‘Is there no moral that you see in this incident?” 
he asked, quietly. 

She glanced at him, at her soldiers, at the path 
down which he would have fled, and muttered, sul- 
lenly : 


152 


The Princess Olga 

“There are others stationed along the walks; you 
could not have passed them.” 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“At the worst,” he said, “the odds were all in my 
favor, because I understand the game; you and 
yours do not.” 

He went to her and took her by the hand, re- 
questing her, by the action, to reseat herself; then 
gathering up the revolvers and laying them on the 
grass, not nearer to himself than to the others, 
standing in front of her, always disregarding the 
presence of his captors, he argued with her as one 
might with a wilful child who would not let her 
mind comprehend a simple lesson because she was 
set to it against her will. 

“Do you not see,” he asked, in a low, intimate 
tone, “the folly of it all? How pitiful are the weak 
against the stronger when they vainly resist what 
must be! Is it not — this capture of one who, you 
think, stands in the way of your Princess Olga — an 
absurdity which opens your eyes to the stupidity of 
your employers? I use the word without reproach 
in the realization that you are a spy.” 

At the charge she uttered an inarticulate cry of 
mortification and anger; but he continued without 
recognition of her interruption: 

“This sort of childish play went out of fashion 
generations ago in all parts of the world where men 
are competent to perform their work. It is done 
now only in preposterous plays, where the soldiers 
and bravoes behind the footlights cannot cross the 
stage without tripping on their swords. It is pos- 
sible that the enactment of such scenes in real life, 
even of the past, were not to be taken more seri- 
ously than the opera -bouffe silliness of to-day. 

153 


The Princess Olga 

Buffoonery, madame, has lost crowns, no doubt; it 
never gained one.” 

He paused over the presentation of his next idea. 

“You have been appealing to me this evening. 
Let me now beg something of you — something in 
which I have not cared to entangle myself, except 
in the vaguest way — with here a suggestion, or a 
possible hint there. Your poor little Princess, as I 
have warned you, can have no happier lot than to 
keep out of affairs with which she is not capable of 
dealing. At the most, the matter here in Crevonia, 
as you disclose it to me, is of no great importance to 
those who decide the question. It is not a large 
task for those who would have it done; they would 
readily find competent hands a-plenty to perform it. 
If I were doing all you say — evidently you would 
not believe me were I to tell you that I share no in- 
terest in Prince Alexander — there would be a large 
supply of others to take my place should the Princess 
Olga or others make away with me. I may assure 
you that it requires no one of large ability to dis- 
pose of this matter in favor of the bankers, as you 
have confided it to me, and as I have observed. 
The will of the powers, financial and political, will 
be done. But such as the affair is — perhaps con- 
temptible in its dimensions and the results to follow 
— it is no field for a woman to tread.” 

He cast back a glance at the pistols shining in the 
grass. 

“No Princess Olga,” he added, gravely, “though 
she had a real army.” 

She opened her lips to interpose some word, but 
he commanded her silence with the line running 
down his forehead from the hair to between his 
brows. 


154 


The Princess Olga 

“I ask you,” he said, “to have done with this 
folly, for her sake as well as your own. This de- 
fiance of forces that are irresistible, so far as your 
little Princess is concerned, cannot go on unpun- 
ished. To combat her destiny is not daring; it is 
not heroism — pardon my honesty, it is the part of a 
fool.” 

“But the right — the right!” she declared. 

“Is there right,” he asked, without sternness, 
“when your infatuation for a cause that is a chimera 
leads you into such things as you have done to-night ? 
I have no fault to find that you are a spy,” he said, 
gravely, not sparing her, though she flinched at his 
frank characterization of her. “Doubtless you have 
your obligations to perform there ; but surely it can- 
not be agreeable to you to use a man’s love to betray 
him. I forgive you that freely,” he added, gently; 
“but you and I both will remember it with pain long 
after the petty ambitions and weak vanities of your 
Princess Olga have been forgotten by the world.” 

He went a step nearer, still speaking in the low, 
earnest tones, and she fell away from him with an- 
other fit of fright, which he would not acknowledge. 

“You have appealed to me,” he went on. “I am 
now appealing to you with a greater feeling for my 
love than you have known for your Princess — beg- 
ging you to have done with this wretched burlesque. 
Continue your devotion to her — I shall always re- 
spect that — so long as she is worthy of it. But let 
her stay with her pensions and revenues where she 
can be of the least harm to her friends. They can 
be of no service to her here, or in this game which 
they do not understand — could never play, if they 
did understand it, for it is the game of the greater, 
the compelling forces. She is none of that. The 

155 


The Princess Olga 

feeble candle of a Princess Olga will sputter out ; but 
the sun will blaze on, and with the sun flaming for 
the world, it will not care for the little Princess; it 
will not give her a thought.” 

He came still nearer, his voice going lower as the 
lover addressed her. 

“There is one way you shall gain what is of value 
to a good woman. Let me show you the way, far 
apart from the tinsel of mock royalty and the hol- 
lowness of paltry rank. I will be good to you; I 
will spare you what stings; I will try to have you 
love me as I would have you do — and, God help me! 
I will succeed,” he ended, quietly, a serene light on 
the strong, clean face. 

But she was warding him off with her denying 
eyes. 

“No,” she murmured, as before. 

“But think!” he commanded, earnestly. “It can- 
not be that you are blind; that this sentimental de- 
votion to a delusion has killed your brain. Think,” 
he repeated, “for I shall be going now. It is mad- 
ness for us to part in this way; it is wicked for you 
to pursue your phantom to the utmost of its harm, 
to you — to your Princess. Will you not?” he whis- 
pered in her shrinking ear, “before it is too late — 
before I leave you now to go back to the Conces- 
sion?” 

She besought him with her eyes, more frightened 
than commanding, to end his pleading. 

“Look, look!” she gasped, pointing; and, turning, 
he saw that there were four of the soldiers, standing 
immovable, their weapons ready for use against him, 
and they were so placed that they might cover him 
from three sides. The revolvers, which had gleamed 
with the dew among the green, were gone. 

156 


The Princess Olga 

“Are we to continue this farce?” he demanded, in 
a harsh note. 

She looked at him with a melancholy semblance of 
defiance and resolution. 

“Yes,” she muttered; “I will play my part to the 
end. You must stay; you must not return to the 
Concession and what you are doing there. You 
must not interfere with the Princess Olga.” 

For a moment the light in his eye burned to hers; 
then he lifted his shoulders in a manner that was less 
contemptuous than the short laugh which rang clear. 

“If I am invited to the castle,” he said, with 
grim satire, “will my hostess take my arm as when 
she — ” But he did not finish, for she had done as 
he suggested, and when her arm slipped within his 
it shook weakly. 

He was to be hard, and he was to ridicule her and 
the cause of her Princess, with all of Crevonia, to an 
insufferable degree. But at that moment, under the 
moonlight, with his arm supporting her, as in the 
Garden of the Nations when she had breathed her 
thanks to him from warm, flushing lips, he could not 
practise that mocking cruelty to which his purpose 
led him — ^not then. 

At the threshold of the old, massive door, how- 
ever, he made one more effort to turn the light of 
modern intellect on mediaeval gloom. 

“Let it be good-night here,” he whispered; “no 
more of this childish nonsense. Let me go back 
loving this night because I saw you as I would have 
you, not, as must be otherwise, with my heart bent 
on your defeat and punishment. Please,” he added, 
pleading not for himself but for her. 

Her lips were pressed firmly, until, with shaking 
voice, she answered General Krag, for he stood with- 
157 


XX 


The Princess Olga 

in the opened portal, stately in his snow-white locks, 
but stolid in his expressionless face. 

“The prisoner,” she said to the venerable man, 
not triumphantly, but faltering. 

Passing within, Harding took on a new manner 
which was instantly communicated to her under- 
standing, for she gave a start as if he were the jailer 
and she at his mercy, not he at hers. His counte- 
nance, his bearing, his voice — and he would speak 
nothing but French, as if denying her the forfeited 
privilege of his language — ^were instinct with cutting, 
sometimes arrogant, ridicule. 

“Will Madame Vaillant,” he laughed, dryly, “have 
the kindness to apologize to her patron. General Krag, 
for my shortcomings of dress, since I came at short 
notice?” 

Her first taste of the fruits of victory were so 
bitter that she went across the room, searching on a 
table for something, so that no one in the room 
might see the tear of vexation and shame flashing in 
the dark eye. 

They were in a great hall, ill-lighted, for the castle 
had not been occupied by more than caretakers in 
the recent life of the Princess Olga. Hasty prepara- 
tions had been made, as the evidence lay on all sides, 
for the reception of General Krag and his party, 
pending the arrival of her Highness if she were ex- 
pected. There were portraits on the wall, and, while 
the others conversed in the Crevonian guttural, he ex- 
amined them without interest, save for one — the face 
of Olga, as he knew from her picture seen on the 
steamer, with its round face and the flat features 
making it singularly unattractive, though meek and 
submissive. 

The lack of character, reflected more speakingly 

158 


The Princess Olga 

in the portrait than in the photograph, caused him 
to scrutinize the old soldier for an explanation of 
the unintelligent force which impelled the missing 
Princess to her folly and her friends to their dis- 
comfiture. Madame Vaillant had assured him that 
the army had been won over to the cause of Olga, 
and would declare for her on the death of the King. 
It was Krag, then, in his mental decay, though a 
magnificent physical specimen, who had concocted a 
plot which would have had the reception of a farce 
in a Broadway theatre. At the inadequacy of their 
equipment a wave of pity swept over him for the in- 
stant; but when he turned from his inspection of 
the painting of the Princess his features carried only 
the derisive estimate of their estate eloquently ex- 
pressed in his nonchalant, disapproving glances at 
the poor candles wavering in their sconces as illus- 
trative of all other incapacity in Crevonia. 

Madame Vaillant was taking up one of those in- 
nocent, feeble lights. Her eye caught the mocking 
gleam in his. Her hand moved unsteadily until, the 
thin flame shivering almost to extinction, -she set it 
down hastily, drawing a quick, painful breath. 

“Since General Krag and I are unable to con- 
verse,” he said, negligently, “will Madame Vaillant 
convey to him that unless I am to occupy a dun- 
geon, I am likely to be embarrassed for lack of 
clothes ?” 

She flamed to the roots of her hair, her eyes pro- 
testing that, whatever the provocation, he should 
not have struck her that blow. 

“In the Concession,” he said, “we indulge in few 
luxuries. My tastes are simple, my wants few; but 
razors — they are indispensable. Possibly, though 
the General is bearded, he could supply me. Hand- 
159 


The Princess Olga. 

kerchiefs, undoubtedly, I could borrow; but a coat 
for dinner, shirts” — ^he glanced over at the large bulk 
of the soldier and shook his head — “unless,” he add- 
ed, looking her straight in the eye, “I am to use 
those of the guards, or the servants.” 

He eyed his own somewhat tightly fitting, plain 
khaki, smiling whimsically over this comparison with 
the Crevonian bagginess and clumsiness. 

“Then there are tooth-brushes and socks and — ” 
Her trim little figure shot up as if in reception of a 
deadly insult. “But perhaps General Krag was ex- 
pecting his guest and has laid in a stock. Would 
Madame Vaillant have the goodness to ask him?” 

Her lips remained sealed, bright spots standing on 
her cheeks. 

“I do not understand Crevonian,” he mocked, 
lightly. “What was his response?” 

She looked his eyes through with a swift dagger 
thrust, and swept from the long room, his quiet 
smile following her. 

“In case he is making arrangements as to the 
clothes,” he called after her, calmly, “I shall be able 
to stay three or four days, if my welcome holds.” 

He strolled back to the portrait of the Princess 
Olga, examining it with a leisurely indifference, until 
he heard, at the entrance whence Madame Vaillant 
had disappeared, the rustling of two skirts, and he 
knew that Madame Krag had returned with his agi- 
tated jailer. He gave a final glance at the portrait 
just as they came up to him. 

“Poor little fool!” He addressed the face in oil 
audibly. “Ah, Madame Krag — will Madame Vail- 
lant convey to her my respects and my apologies for 
the unfortunate circumstances I have recited to her?” 

She was breathing quickly, her face again sullen. 
i6o 


The Princess Olga 

“Madame Krag announces,” she said — it amused 
him to detect spite in her accent — “that if monsieur 
is disposed to retire his room is ready.” 

“Not the dungeon?” he gave back under his 
breath. 

“Madame Krag awaits the pleasure of monsieur,” 
she replied, with cold dignity. 

General Krag stepped forward to conduct him, 
and now he saw that a guard had remained in the 
corner and was following them. Harding made as 
if to bid good-night to Madame Vaillant, having 
spoken the word with respect to her elderly friend. 
What he said, bowing and using a natural voice, 
with the fine note running through the phrase, made 
her bite her lip to conceal a gesture of mortification 
from the others towards whom her back was showing. 

“Monsieur, your guest,” he said, “observes that 
the arms of Prince Alexander’s troops, which are to 
desert him, are old-fashioned muskets. A Mauser, 
for example, would kill a man in his tracks at two 
thousand yards; an army of muskets would be dead 
before it came within twelve hundred yards of its 
range.” 

Again he bowed and went after General Krag, the 
guard at his heels. 

In his room he saw at once that he might lock his 
door; whereby he concluded that the guard and his 
relief would spend the night in the hall, and that the 
window — he had come up two long flights — offered 
little chance to escape. Looking out, he beheld the 
drop to the ground appeared, in the night, to be a 
full thirty feet. Outside, a long, open gallery, high- 
railed, ran the length of the palace wall. He stepped 
into the air, once more measuring the distance to 
the earth with a careful eye. He felt the rail, shak- 

i6i 


The Princess Olga 

ing it roughly to see if it were solid. His glance 
roved the grounds swiftly. At either end of the 
path under the balcony ambled two guards in the 
heedless, heavy way of the Crevonians. 

For a while he gazed at the moon, brilliant in the 
clear sky, took another glimpse of the guards, tread- 
ing their posts, smiled the calm, confident smile, and 
went within. 

Without further investigation Harding undressed, 
and slept a very comfortable night. 


CHAPTER XVI 


W HEN Harding arose, early, and, having dressed, 
went down-stairs, he discovered that he was to 
be permitted to go about at will, always with the 
single guard at his heels, if they were in the pal- 
ace; others near, if they were without. Such of the 
Princess’s household as were present were charac- 
teristically Crevonian in slothfulness, for, aside from 
those in the uniform, no one was astir when the 
prisoner came forth. 

Waiting for his breakfast, or for some word as to 
what he was to do, the American coolly strolled the 
grounds, carefully inspecting all the walks and en- 
trances, especially the doors on the different sides of 
the crude pile of masonry. Before Madame Vaillant 
appeared he had a very fair idea of the whole place, 
and a hearty appetite. 

Madame Vaillant found him pacing in the sun to 
fight off the yearnings of a healthy stomach. She 
was pale, and, with the lines under her lower lids 
and the restless light behind the dark lashes, showed 
that she had taken little repose. His eyes had that 
clear, shining gleam from good spirits and his early 
hours in the morning air. He looked at her with 
affected sympathy. 

“Madame Vaillant,” he said, “awaits her break- 
fast?” 

She made a weary gesture to intimate that his 
sardonic concern was not worthy of him ; but he had 
163 


The Princess Olga, 

no mind to forego the programme of insolent be- 
havior which he had assumed. 

“If I am to stay some time,” he went on, “would 
it be possible for madame to arrange that I might 
have a bath in the morning? I have no desire to 
put on airs, but that is a habit which it would be 
hard for me to break, even in captivity.” 

Her pallor was suddenly bathed in a crimson 
rivalling the glow in the eastern sky. 

“There are other matters which, perhaps, can be 
attended to now that the unexpectedness of my 
visit is over. I shall be able to spend three or four 
days with my hosts, if they wish.” 

She was at a tension of form and feature; and it 
was to her credit that she recognized the uselessness 
of attempting to disguise the fact. Nevertheless, 
she answered him at last with dignity. 

“We shall do the best we can,” she said, “to make 
a necessarily unpleasant condition as tolerable as 
may be. Will monsieur join us at breakfast?” 

He went with unfeigned alacrity, smiling his con- 
fession that he was on the verge of starvation through 
the habitual Crevonian remissness. At the table he 
praised immoderately the coffee, taking neither 
cream nor sugar, his eloquent eyes reminding her of 
his confidence in the Concession that he was in 
training for a life of deprivation of all luxuries. 
Bacon and eggs he consumed with an exaggeration 
of zest. 

“Certainly,” he exclaimed, with a significant em- 
phasis on the tribute, “the forte of the Crevonian is 
cooking.” 

The others held a nearly uniform silence, the 
Krags stolid as usual, Madame Vaillant sullen and 
haughty. 


164 


The Princess Olga, 

Breakfast over, he went off in the sun again for a 
smoke with the short pipe. When he returned to 
her he was dangling the pouch in his brown fingers. 

“In recounting my needs to madame,” he smiled, 
“I forgot to mention tobacco. It is as essential to 
my comfort as baths and linen." 

“If monsieur is willing to give his parole," she 
said, hastily, “there will be no restraint on him." 

He raised his eyebrows questioningly, as if he did 
not understand. 

“His parole," she repeated. 

“But," he protested, mockingly, “if monsieur 
should do that he would bind himself to remain, 
and thus make a longer success of madame’s coup. 
He has no intention of staying beyond the few days 
he has allowed himself for a vacation." 

She sought his eyes dubiously, his returning a 
straight, calm look of assurance. She turned away 
her head to conceal some emotion betrayed there 
under his cool scorn of their conspiracy. 

“Perhaps madame, however, would indulge me in 
respect of one of my habits," he said. “ It is a weak- 
ness of mine to stroll alone every morning for a few 
moments while I formulate my plans. Though I am 
in Crevonia, some of these," he added, arrogantly, 
“are of sufficient consequence to relate to distant 
countries. At such times it is an extreme annoy- 
ance to me to have my footsteps dogged; a thing of 
that sort breaks the train of thought. In my morn- 
ing walk I have observed that the roof of the castle 
is flat for the most part. If madame saw no objec- 
tion, I would spend a little time there — say half or 
three-quarters of an hour every morning during my 
visit." 

“But, monsieur," she hesitated. 

165 


The Princess Olga. 

“It is all of sixty feet above the ground,” he as- 
sured her. “I should have no desire to leap the 
distance — not even to rid the Concession of my ex- 
istence,” he laughed, and again at her flush of denial. 

“But here in the grounds — ” she began. 

He glanced at the guards pacing their posts in 
slovenly fashion. 

“If madame does not care to grant the relief,” he 
said, and shrugged his shoulders. 

He had offered the petition in the language of re- 
quest; but his tone and manner had reflected com- 
mand, somewhat negligently arrogant. 

“By all mee,ns, if monsieur desires,” she said, 
hurriedly. 

“May I begin now?” he asked, starting within. 

There was an implied promise on his part that he 
would not seek direct escape by way of the roof 
while enjoying his reprieve, and, warning back the 
persistent guard who was his shadow, she led the 
way up the flights, her breath running faster as they 
climbed, until they came to a spiral stairway reach- 
ing under the hatch. He slipped the bolt, raising 
the covering to admit his shoulders above, and then 
looked down. 

“Thank you, madame; half an hour of freedom,” 
he said, ascending the rest of the way and letting 
the hatch drop. 

This done, he sat down on it, that it might not be 
lifted from below. 

Harding’s weapons gone, he had not been sub- 
jected to the indignity of a search. He carried in 
his pocket a heavy wallet, stuffed, apparently, with 
papers. But this receptacle he began to take apart 
with quick, sure fingers, and as his task advanced it 
revealed the parts of a tiny heliograph, cunningly 

i66 


The Princess Olga 

concealed when in the wallet. These he fitted with the 
deftness of experience, and soon he began his work of 
the castle roof. Patiently he signalled, again and 
again, always the same message, translated in the 
code, “Tommy, H.” ; “Tommy, H.”; “Tommy, H.” 

For ten minutes he continued, when a smile of 
satisfaction spread over his absorbed features, for 
now he was receiving the answer, “H., Tommy.” 

Then he worked industriously, his steady fingers 
instinct with success, his gray eye alight with sparks. 
Here is the message which one conversant with the 
code would have received : 

“Countermand order for assault castle — not necessary. 

“Very comfortable here — want stay three days more. 

“Abduction, but plot inadequate — not more than dozen 
clowns. 

“Castle may rely on immunity from invasion by treaty, 
keeping me here, but you must guard against removal. 

“If reabducted, probably across Weissburg line — Duke 
must prevent. 

“Stop entry of possible adduction party over boimdary — 
not likely to take me interior — danger there greater to con- 
spirators. 

“Watch river carefully — patrol constantly — have boats 
every night one-half mile away. 

“Unless I come before, arrange come single-handed, self, 
Wednesday evening — twelve fathoms half-inch rope. Din- 
ner seven to eight. All engaged then. 

“Room, sponge from window. 

“Ingress, buttery — servant there, your size, appearance. 

“If failure Wednesday, assault, midnight.” 

In the midst of the transmission of the latter part 
of the despatch he had heard a shout in the grounds, 
but did not turn his eye in that direction, going on 
steadily and swiftly with his work. Some one un- 
derneath him rapped on the hatch, at first per- 
emptorily, then frantically, but he did not answer. 

167 


The Princess Olga, 

Now he was taking the little instrument to pieces, 
replacing it in the secret spaces of the fat wallet. 

“Monsieur! — Monsieur Harding!” came the smoth- 
ered tones of Madame Vaillant from beneath. He 
did not reply. 

“Monsieur, it is I! — only I!” she called, repeating 
the knocks. 

“I have three minutes more of grace, madame,” 
he called back. And then, with cool disdain: “Mad- 
ame has broken her faith with the lover; surely she 
would not break her word with the prisoner. Two 
minutes, madame.” 

He rearranged his papers, dropped the wallet in 
his pocket, and, lifting the hatch, glanced down at 
the eager, frightened eyes. He smiled through them 
with a thrust of derision. 

“Madame has given me an interval of genuine 
pleasure,” he said, calmly. “I shall enjoy my little 
trips here scarcely less than my early morning waits 
in the beautiful gardens.” 

The grounds were sadly neglected, as was the 
castle, and she shot him a glance of indignant pro- 
test against his insult of the Princess’s poverty. 

“What have you been doing? — ^what?” she de- 
manded, in a rush of anxious words. 

“It is like a patent, madame,” he replied, soberly. 
“ It is best not to disclose it until it is completed and 
in operation, with full security to the inventor.” 

He was assisting her down the spiral way, which 
was steep and threatening. 

“What have you been doing?” she repeated, in a 
frightened voice. 

“A service to Madame Vaillant,” he replied, gal- 
lantly. “Something which will spare her injury, 
possibly; surely, mortification.” 

i68 


The Princess Olga, 

At the foot of the stairs he stopped, and with the 
same little stub which he had used in the Concession 
wrote on the wall the first three lines of the code 
translated : 

“Countermand order for assault castle — not necessary. 

“Very comfortable here — want stay three days more. 

“Abduction, but plot inadequate — not more than dozen 
clowns.” 

She followed the pencil with feverish, frightened 
eyes. They were alone; she was very near him, 
trembling. He caught her hand. 

“Are you not convinced?” he asked, in a low 
voice, smiling as she shivered. 

She tore her fingers from his, marching before him, 
her head up defiantly, but her shoulders a-tremble, 
until they came to the great hall, which, with the 
breakfast-room, seemed to be the only one, besides 
the sleeping-apartments, that had been made ready, 
only incompletely, for use. 

“Would you violate the sacred rights of the 
Zone against invasion or intrusion?” she asked, bit- 
terly. 

“Why not?” he demanded, with indifferent effront- 
ery. “Has madame refrained from violating things 
sacred ?” 

She would not respond to his invitation to take 
up the subject of the trap into which she had be- 
trayed him. 

“The treaty is guaranteed,” she said, “by the 
powers.” 

“They guarantee it,” he responded, dryly. “ Does 
madame^uppose that, under the circumstances, they 
would enforce it ? When one takes hold of the 
wrong end of a sword, madame, one must not be 
surprised if it cuts.” 


169 


The Princess Olga 

She cast her glance around restlessly, nervously; 
and he read her thoughts — ^that he must be taken to 
some other place — but baited her before he revealed 
his purpose, 

“ Has madame sent for the Princess to submit the 
prisoner to a further test?” he asked. “She could 
have no better advocate than the lady who pre- 
sented her case so warmly. Still, if her Highness is 
to come to plead or to give the inquisition, she must 
make haste. My engagements will require my pres- 
ence in the Concession soon.” 

A tear caught on her lash ; but he had no mercy. 

“Or perhaps madame has summoned suitable in- 
struments to despatch her prisoner or to bury him.” 

“It is false!” she cried, vehemently, goaded be- 
yond her self-control. 

“That they would despatch me?” he asked, in de- 
rision. “Yet they, too, must come quickly,” he 
said, the French adverb hissing scorn, “for it will 
be inconvenient for me to remain. If madame de- 
sires that they see her caged deer, will she not be so 
good as to hasten them also?” 

Always he was shaking her resolution, cutting her 
with a semblance of carelessness, but remorselessly. 
Standing near the window, they saw one of the 
guards marching his path, his long skirts fluttering 
in the breeze in a way which could have had no 
equal for what was unsoldierly. 

“If madame has the courage of her convictions,” 
he said, “her prisoner will stake his liberty against 
her happiness that, at fifty yards, with five shots, a 
Crevonian musket will not pierce my head.” 

In every language there are phrases which, once 
understood, even by foreigners, seem to convey ideas 
as none others will. 


170 


The Princess Olga 

“Don’t,” she said, in English, not looking at him. 

But he would not permit her use of conversation 
in his tongue. 

“Or,” he said, “the same stake that in three 
shots it will not touch my whole body.” 

“Please don’t,” she faltered, again in English. 

Once more he refused to hear anything spoken in 
that language. 

“Madame fears to lose, then? Well, another. I 
will bet my life — to be had without the cost of be- 
trayal — against the throne of Crevonia that, if I 
have back one of my revolvers, in a single shot I 
will split the guard’s head at the distance, though he 
is on the run.” 

Now she blazed into a fury, white hot. 

“Monsieur has vowed, vowed, vowed,” she said, 
between her little white teeth, her nostrils quiver- 
ing. “In his country, do men practise cruelty on 
those to whom they swear their vows?” 

“But if one must punish children to teach them, 
what then?” he asked, with a tolerant shrug. 

She held her face towards the window, drumming 
on the pane. 

“Monsieur charges frequently,” she said, slowly, 
in French, the set of her head, as he saw it from be- 
hind, indicating high courage, “that I have plotted 
his life. He forgets that I have saved it — that I 
protected him to a degree — in Weissburg, at night, 
in my home, at a possible blow, if there were a hand 
vile enough to strike it, to my honor.” 

He saw the back of her slender neck, beneath 
where the black locks clustered, all on fire. 

“And he does not forget,” he answered, in a scoff- 
ing voice, “that the same lady cancelled all obliga- 
tion by playing with an honest man’s love to tempt 
171 


The Princess Olga, 

him to dishonor or to trap him to this.” He thrust 
his hand before her, where she must see it, pointing 
out the window to the guard securing his imprison- 
ment. 

She turned on him, her eyes only fluttering her 
appeal up to his. 

“For God’s sake,” she murmured, “do not — do 
not do that one thing to me — do not say it, when 
you know it is false.” 

“ Yet it is true — the betrayal,” he answered, calmly. 
“Nevertheless, I would have madame speak to me — 
here, under these circumstances — only in French. 
She has done so; we will talk no more of it.” 

He smiled at her, not so much in pity as in mastery. 

“Shall we go out in the park, under a parole for 
one hour,” he asked, in the confident tone, “with 
no guards to excite one’s sense of humor? For an 
hour send them to their cots. They always look so 
sleepy,” he added, whimsically. 

She went with him submissively. 


CHAPTER XVII 


A ll the unhappily assorted company within the 
^ castle were glad to escape early the constraint 
of the evenings in the great room, where, owing to 
the different languages they spoke, Harding could 
not hold conversation with General and Mrs. Krag, 
and where the American, however quiet his gesture 
and smiling his face, assiduously lashed the younger 
woman with ironic tongue. From those encounters 
they went to their beds with undisguised relief, the 
Crevonians heavy of countenance and slow of move- 
ment, Madame Vaillant with a dogged, worn look on 
her delicate features, which were all white when not 
flushed, Harding calmly contemptuous of the details 
for securing him during the vigils of the night. 

At ten o’clock of the evening following the day 
of his heliograph despatch to Mordaunt the castle 
was in repose, no one within stirring, except the soli- 
tary guard who kept watch in the corridor before 
the prisoner’s door. Harding, having undressed in 
leisurely fashion by candle, got up noiselessly and 
began to redress by moonlight. Stepping out on 
the gallery, leaning close against the masonry, he 
surveyed the situation below. It was as peaceful as 
vacant meadows in the country. He saw no sentries 
covering their posts in the grounds ; he did not won- 
der. He shrugged his shoulders at the habitual re- 
missness of the race which Madame Vaillant expected 
13 173 


The Princess Olga 

to right the wrongs of the Princess Olga in a theatre 
where mighty forces were engaged. 

He did not know that she herself was accountable 
for the absence from view of the long-skirted guards, 
bearing their antiquated, absurd muskets, for she 
had crept out-of-doors to cool her cheek in the night 
air from the stings which he inflicted without com- 
passion. In a mingled disgust with them and anger 
against herself for what she could neither improve 
nor control, she had sent them to the river end of 
the castle, where they were grouped comfortably on 
the ground, smoking their cigarettes in a way to 
have made Harding grin mockingly at her, had the 
two of them been together to witness the breach of 
discipline and the disregard of conventional service 
under arms. 

Slowly Harding edged his way along, stopping 
every few paces to look and listen. There was no 
sound; he saw nothing but the shadows moving, as 
branches of trees or shrubs swayed in the lightly 
stirring air. 

The gallery had been planned to run around both 
the side of the castle and its end looking towards the 
Crevonian road; but the work had not been com- 
pleted. The platform did turn the corner, con- 
tinuing for not more than three yards. Here, when 
the task was abandoned years before, a temporary 
rail had been set up to protect the careless from fall- 
ing off till the construction should be resumed. 
When it had been interrupted the iron brackets to 
bear the next stage had been fitted into the wall; 
but the gallery had not been extended even thus far, 
the supports being left for the future builders if they 
should ever come. The distance to them was some 
eight or ten feet. 


174 


The Princess Olga 

Among the facts which Harding had gathered re- 
garding his place of confinement was that on the 
third floor only General Krag and himself slept, the 
Crevonian’s wife being in some other part of the 
building with Madame Vaillant. One of the windows 
of the old man’s room directly fronted the abandoned 
brackets. Laying a few planks on them, slight in- 
genuity or enterprise could have improvised a private 
balcony; but apparently the idea had not occurred 
to any one, or perhaps, since little use was made of 
the castle, it had not been deemed worth while. 

In his walks around the grounds, both at night 
and by day, Harding had observed that Krag’s win- 
dow, like his own, was always kept open. He was 
resolved to enter the room for two reasons. If he 
could pass through without awakening the soldier 
he would have a free way to the lower part of the 
house, for he would come forth in a corridor where 
no guard, as in his own, stood at the door. He had 
an idea, also, that in all probability his revolvers 
were in the possession of Krag, and if he should suc- 
ceed in escaping under the old man’s snoring nose, 
he was very likely to find service for them outside. 

The moon, though round and clear, climbed as yet 
a course which threw shadows past the trees on the 
end where the General lodged, and Harding was 
satisfied that, if he could reach the supports, he 
could make the attempt to enter with reasonable as- 
surance of not being discovered by straying guards 
without. In any event, they stayed close to his 
side of the castle; on this night, as he had seen, 
they were nowhere near either point. 

The feat of leaping to the bracket, as from a plat- 
form to a trapeze, did not present itself to him as 
one of difficulty; for, as soon as he had reached the 

175 


The Princess Olga 

spot for the act, he stepped on the rail, balancing 
himself with one hand against the masonry, and 
sprang forward in the air, counting on gravity to 
lower his flight to the level of the bar when he had 
shot the intervening space. Nor was he disappoint- 
ed; one hand, reaching for the bracket, missed, but 
with his other he caught it, whirling with a thud 
against the wall. He hung suspended only long 
enough to convince himself that his abrupt plunge 
to the wall had not aroused the inmate. Then he 
smiled confidently, for, waiting, he could hear the 
heavy breathing of the sleeper within. Now he 
made the simple swing upward of a man circling a 
horizontal bar in a gymnasium, and, with the move- 
ment completed, was seated opposite the open win- 
dow ready to creep in. 

At that minute, while his ear was straining to 
catch any possible alarm within, his eye, looking 
down, fell on one of the guards. The man began 
to upturn his face slowly, and instantly, regardless 
of what adventure might await his precipitation, 
Harding slipped beyond the sill, lost, just as their 
eyes met, to the view of the soldier down below, 
gaping in wonder at the brief, almost instantaneously 
vanishing exhibit of acrobatics from the window of 
General Krag. 

The figure on the ground stood beyond the shadow 
of the wall in a patch of light dropping through the 
branches; and Harding, peering at it from his re- 
treat, while fixing half his senses on the room and 
its occupant, could distinguish every line in the 
stolid face held up and marked with heavy creases 
to make it appear majestic under the moon’s beams. 
As plainly as if the man were telling his thoughts 
the hidden invader could read the story gradually 
176 




The Princess Olga 

depicted on the bewildered features. The fellow 
had come back from his comrades to regain a for- 
gotten tobacco-bag, for it trailed by its string from 
his fingers. Happening to glance up at the precise 
instant when Harding was making to enter, he was 
not sure of his vision — whether he had dreamed the 
event or it had occurred. 

It was patent that the clown canvassed the possi- 
bility of the rightful occupant of the room being ab- 
sent and of an intruder having sought flight by the 
window; but it was a sheer drop to the earth of 
thirty feet, and the stranger, if he had, in fact, been 
a living sight, was at least barred from escape in this 
way; indeed, he was safely caught within. The 
guard did not wish to raise an alarm for nothing. In 
the first place, if his general were inside, the matter 
was satisfactory to him, for he made no outcry. If 
the master were gone, at least the intruder could not 
get away, and the direction to apprehend him was 
from the inside, not the outside. 

Harding, reading the story graven in such speak- 
ing eloquence on the heavy, puzzled features, could 
scarcely refrain from laughing, and he must have done 
so if the stentorian breaths of the sleeper within two 
yards of him had not been a constant reminder of 
the disastrous results which would follow any sound 
from him. 

Then the prisoner, in his new quarters, decided that 
he must act promptly, for the radiating face below 
told him again that the soldier had a suggestion, 
slowly dawning on his mind, to investigate from 
within. Yet, in the hesitation of his expression, 
there was a ludicrous confession that he stood a very 
good chance, if his eyes had deceived him as to the 
gymnastics, of being jeered mercilessly by his com- 
177 


The Princess Olga 

rades, or, if Krag were needlessly awakened, of being 
severely reprimanded for his idiotic interference. 

He turned to walk around, lingeringly, towards 
the side entrance of the castle, and Harding directed 
his whole alert attention to the interior. The moon 
threw a long shaft of radiance straight across the 
room, leaving the sides in comparative obscurity, 
with little darts of light straying here and there. On 
a table he saw a gleam, and stole there, taking up, 
as he was sure he would do, o^e of his revolvers. 
Unfortunately, his hand, running over the other 
articles, knocked something from its base, and to 
him the light fall seemed a crash. He had his re- 
volver levelled on the form in the bed at the mo- 
ment that it stirred, muttering; but the guttural 
sounds were somnolent orders, as if to inferiors. 
General Krag had been disturbed, but, heavy with 
sleep, had lapsed again into, perhaps, a dream of re- 
sisted authority. 

Harding lost no time; he needed the other re- 
volver; he was more anxious to be out. He crossed 
to the door, the moon’s path enabling him to look 
through the slit of lock and frame, to see, with satis- 
faction, that the key had not been turned — evidently 
to permit the General to be aroused at any time 
without delay. 

But, if the door was unfastened, as he opened it 
carefully it creaked loudly, and he grit his teeth, 
prepared now for the promised struggle. Yet that 
sound of unoiled hinges must have been so familiar 
to Crevonian ears as not to attract notice even in 
the dead of night, for the sleeper did not start up, 
though the dreamy mutterings were repeated angrily. 
In the next second Harding was out in the hall, go- 
ing swiftly to where it turned into the one leading 
178 


The Princess Olga, 


to his room. Here he peered around the corner to 
observe the guard near his own door. This one was 
oblivious of all that was taking place, for he marched 
faithfully, but unconcernedly, his post. 

From the angle where Harding stood it was neces- 
sary for him to follow the same corridor in which 
was the sentry to the stairs which would take him 
down. This, however, proved simple, for the guard 
was moving a short stage from the prisoner’s room 
to the next but one and back again. When it was 
time for him to retrace his beat from the direction 
where the other stood to the door which was his 
charge, Harding ran lightly, his eye on the back of 
the guard, his revolver ready, and successfully made 
the stairway. 

Thus far all had gone so well with his plan that it 
had been child’s play. He knew he must hasten, 
though, to anticipate the soldier on the outside, and 
he made as good speed as was possible in the dark. 
But while he was descending he heard a sound which 
put him doubly on his caution. Fearing the creak 
of the rusty hinges, he had left them unswung behind 
him. The strong draught, sucking through the cor- 
ridor and down the stair well, had drawn the door 
shut with a bang, which this time brought the old 
soldier out of bed, fully awake. Nevertheless, he 
had not so much suspicion of the invasion of his 
room as negligence elsewhere by some of his own 
people. He came out, a dressing-gown thrown 
around him, to discover the offender. In the other 
hall the sentry paced as usual, though he showed a 
reasonable interest in the unexpected slam. From 
his demeanor, however, it was apparent to Krag 
that nothing out of the ordinary had taken place 
here. He detected the strong current of air rushing 
179 


The Princess Olga 

down the well, and, intent on finding the cause 
below them, pushed on without stopping, motioning 
to the watcher to remain at his post, lest the prisoner, 
also aroused, should come forth to investigate, and, 
seeing no one there, start on an expedition of his own. 

More from habit than from precaution or menace, 
Krag, following in the wake of Harding, carried one 
of the revolvers. He went down the dark way fast, 
his bare feet pattering pudgily on the stone to in- 
form the pursued who he was ; and Harding realized 
that he was likely to find himself between two fires. 
He had no doubt that the elder man was in direct 
chase of him, and he looked for the arrival of the 
outer guard at the front-door about the same time 
that he should reach it. 

He had no desire to kill Madame Vaillant’s friend 
unless this were essential to the fulfilment of his 
plan of escape; but he had no intention of tamely 
submitting to recapture. Yet he was loath to fire — 
the surest way in the darkness to make a fatal end 
of this pursuit — because the shot must alarm the one 
outside as well as him before his door. Their cries 
would summon others, through whom he must fight 
his road to liberty. The last thing he was seeking 
was a swashbuckling adventure, the results of which, ‘ 
with him dead or alive, might advertise to all the 
world and perhaps spoil the purpose he had in being 
in the Concession. Even at this moment he thought 
with grim chagrin of the hard look on the face of 
Joseph Locke if he should learn that, after all, Har- 
ding had tagged cheap notoriety, and failure as well, 
to their reputations. 

Notwithstanding, he was resolved against going 
back, except as the inevitable. Then, as he paused 
to listen if Krag were quickening his pace and gain- 
180 


The Princess Olga, 

ing on him, his hand brushed a door which gave him 
the very idea he wanted. It was one leading from 
the lower hallway, where he now was, down to some 
sort of dungeon where, in other days, prisoners had 
been kept. He had gathered this from his observa- 
tion of the great thickness of the door, and doubtless 
the walls, as if to deaden the noise of those confined 
below as much as to withstand the force of heavy 
assault. 

This door he opened softly, holding it at right 
angles, himself behind it. In the pitchy blackness 
his follower, unmindful of what awaited, walked di- 
rectly towards the barricade. 

It had been Harding’s notion that, when his pur- 
suer reached him, he must step forth suddenly, and, 
tripping him, cast him down the yawning stairs. 
But he was unaware of Krag’s ignorance of his part 
in the events that were taking place, and of how the 
very fact, unusual to a degree, of the open passage 
to the dungeon confirmed the old man’s theory of 
careless servants. Indeed, coming to it, and feeling 
the musty air cross his face, the Crevonian stopped 
and stood at the upper step, facing below, while he 
pondered the affair. In that instant Harding closed 
the door on him, pushing him, stumbling and grop- 
ing, down the stairs. 

All happened so quickly, and with such success, 
the bolt securely slipped behind the prisoner’s pris- 
oner, that Harding laughed outright. But he must 
press on now, for there was the work of crossing the 
open space in front of the great door before the 
guard outside should bar the way with an encounter, 
the uproar of which would bring all his fellows on 
the run. He hastened forward, feeling his path 
through the darkness, passing into the great room 

i8i 


The Princess Olga, 

and making for the entrance. But, though he was 
aided by the fact of the portal being ajar, as Madame 
Vaillant had left it, he was too late; he heard the 
crash of gravel on the walk under the approaching 
feet of the soldier. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


H arding did not turn back. At the side of 
the entrance was a large urn, now crumbling 
and grown over with ivy. He crept behind this 
shelter as the fellow came up, though, still doubtful, 
he did not pass within. In fact, he leaned on the 
very urn, ruminating his problem. The American had 
his weapon so close to the head of the burly figure 
that a thrust of six inches through the green leaves 
would have planted the muzzle on the other’s temple. 
Thus he must wait ; for, if .one or the other made a 
sudden change of posture, discovery was all but cer- 
tain. Indeed, it was impossible for the fugitive to 
prevent his crouching body from giving motion to 
the vine which rustled in response. Fortunately, 
however, the breeze still stirred, and at times the 
little rasp of the leaves was natural from this cause, 
so that no suspicion was aroused by the repetition of 
the untoward sound. 

In this attitude of suspense Harding hung, watch- 
ing, at such close range, every line of the fellow’s 
visage as, in his perplexity, he wrinkled his forehead 
or pursed his lips. Then, to his enormous relief, for 
the strain was goading him to do something quick 
and decisive to end the balance between secrecy and 
discovery, the man backed straight away, as if to re- 
turn to his companions, letting the affair take care 
of itself, since no one would ever know that he had 
seen the mid-air acrobatics— if he had. 

183 


The Princess Olga 

In that moment Harding had an irresistible im- 
pulse, scorned by his own level mind, for, as he act- 
ed, his lip curled with self-reproach. Backing, the 
soldier still faced him, shaking his ponderous head 
with doubtful satisfaction and moving slowly, when, 
holding his revolver between the astonished eyes of 
the other, a finger on his lips to admonish the Cre- 
vonian that the penalty of an outcry would be in- 
stant death, Harding rose before him. 

For a moment they fronted each other, the one 
open-mouthed but speechless, his eyes bulging still 
farther, the other’s with a coldly glittering flash. Yet 
the lean face still carried that light of self-contempt 
for the needless yielding to the temptation of a 
ruffler, though he had a serious personal purpose in 
this act no less than his escape. It was not suffi- 
cient that, as he had warned his jailer he would, he 
should go away, not enough that he should merely 
lock up her patron. To impress on her his lessons 
of the recent weeks he must pen the General and 
the private together in equal indignity. When they 
should be released, with him vanished, the pair should 
be for her contemplation — master and man incarcer- 
ated in their own dungeon by the prisoner of Madame 
Vaillant! 

Harding motioned to the captive to go within, and 
he started straightway. On the threshold a strong, 
steady hand caught the soldier by the upper arm, so 
that he could not writhe away through the darkness 
inside. At the same time the pistol was pressed 
close to the back of the big chap’s muddled head. 
In that arrangement they marched through the 
blackness of the great room. 

Coming to the dungeon door, Harding did not hesi- 
tate. He calculated that the revolving hinges would 
184 


The Princess Olga 

advise the penned Krag that he was being released, 
so that he would make no sudden leap. Nor did 
he. As they opened the two heard the old pris- 
oner arise from the step on which he was sitting. 
With a quick, powerful arm Harding threw his sec- 
ond capture in and swung the door closed behind 
him. 

Now he was surely free. With a confident stride 
he left the castle and crossed the walk, pressing into 
the thick shadows of bush and tree, while he rec- 
onnoitred his course to the Concession. First he 
listened again, but no more feet came grinding in 
the gravel; there was no voice on the air. Once 
more the smile of disdain touched his features, and 
he began to pick his way cautiously from his place 
of captivity. 

Stealing stealthily through the shrubbery, how- 
ever, he came upon a sight which, for the moment, 
held him hesitant. In a little open space, the moon 
full on her, sat Madame Vaillant. Her head was 
down in a weary, dejected attitude, her face pale, 
dark rims showing clearly beneath the lower lids. 
He thought he saw the glint of a tear. 

For a while the escaped prisoner gazed on the 
melancholy picture; then his jaw settled to his pur- 
pose, and he stole on in the direction of the Conces- 
sion. He crept ahead for twenty yards, when again 
he stopped. 

“Poor little devil,” he murmured, “buried in her 
useless miseries!” 

The old gleam of confidence arose in his eye. He 
turned and retraced his course, walking erect, mak- 
ing no effort to conceal himself. 

Still absorbed in the contemplation of her vain 
hopes or enrapt in the dream of possible success, she 

185 


The Princess Olga 

did not see him, though now he stood directly be- 
fore her, the inscrutable smile on his lean face. 

“Madame Vaillant,” he said, quietly. 

She gave him her gaze slowly, her eyes opening 
wide, more in wonder than in alarm. 

Going nearer, he smiled again, and she saw that 
there was none of the satirical expression of recent 
times. His face was grave but gentle, his bearing 
one of command, as always, but showing deference. 

“You see,” he said, in a low voice, “I have come 
to you. With us it is ever so — you to me or I to 
you,” and his words were in English. 

She had drunk in the change of his manner slowly. 
His return to the use of his own language confirmed 
her appreciation of the promise that it was not the 
captive addressing his warden, not the enemy of her 
Princess defying her friend, but the lover to the 
woman he wooed. And her smile, returning his, 
was all enchantment with a girl’s softness and con- 
tent. 

“Is it not better,” he said, “to have me here in 
this way? You hear me — in what tongue I am 
speaking? Do you not know why? It is because I 
am free ; I have come to you of my own will ; it is my 
language of liberty — and love,” he added, his voice 
sinking lower. “Would you not have it so for all 
time?” 

“Free?” she echoed, but with no fear. 

Unconsciously her eye roved the shadows behind 
him, seeking the ever-following guard ; but there was 
none. Yet she did not understand; nor did her 
mind dwell on his declaration that he had regained 
his liberty. 

“Yes,” he said, simply, “and I have come to you.” 

If he were making no effort to resist their restraint, 

i86 


The Princess Olga 

driving no darts of bitterness into her tender flesh, it 
was enough. She smiled again, and it was the smile 
of a child, innocent and trusting. 

“Oh,” he said, earnestly, “if you were never any- 
thing else than what you are now; if you were like 
this — do you not see yet?” he broke off. “Are you 
not convinced ? I have been trying only to make 
you understand. For that I have come to you 
whenever you have sent ; I should have kept on com- 
ing. I have wished you to comprehend. You be- 
lieve now that all your plans — those you have con- 
fided to me and those you still hide — are a delusion 
— you believe now, do you not? You will no longer 
sacrifice the possibilities of happiness to the irra- 
tional, the impossible? You will listen to me, not 
the strong man, not the man you fear in behalf of 
your Princess, but the man who loves you? He 
wants you to put away what is not for the hand of 
the weak, to forget what is folly, if it does not be- 
come worse. He wants you to wait for him till he 
has done the work which is good work to him, be- 
cause it has brought him to you. Then he wants 
you to go with him to your real happiness and your 
truer life. Don’t you see now?” he asked. “Will 
you do this?” 

But it had dawned on her that here was the old 
plea to abandon her Princess — to forsake the right 
for her own peace and happiness. She shook her 
little head, the dark eye denying him with a faint, 
sad smile. 

“It can never be,” she breathed. 

He was patient where in those other meetings he 
had been inflexible. 

“There is nothing, nothing in that other,” he said, 
gravely. 

187 


The Princess Olga 

“The right,” she murmured, smiling with tears. 

He took her fingers, and she did not withdraw 
them. 

“Listen,” he said; “if I were with your Princess, 
as I am not; if I were of her party, as I am not; if I 
wished nothing else so much in the world but the ful- 
filment of her aims, as I do not, I must tell you and 
her what I say now — there could come of it all, 
nothing.” 

“If you would try,” she whispered, her glance 
mingled, all shining, with his. 

He stood away from her with a slow gesture, ac- 
cepting failure for the time. 

“It is late,” he said, quietly. “Shall we go 
within?” 

When they walked the turf and paths to the grim, 
heavy door her arm was in his in the old way. From 
the distance hurried the careless guards in their 
clumsy roughness. What surprise they showed him 
at seeing the prisoner out-of-doors unattended by 
any of their number when they had thought him in 
his room, a sentry at his door, was dully reflected 
from their visages. She detected nothing of their 
looks. Her eyes were away from their doltish ex- 
pressions. 

Harding’s subtle smile stole to his mouth and 
vanished before she detected its appearance. He 
turned for a last look at the heavens. 

“Dismiss them,” he said. “I am going in.” 

At the word she gave them a wave of her hand, 
and they went to their posts. 

Harding found a candle and struck a match to it. 
In the great, bare room it was a tiny spark, lighting 
her face and dark eyes before flitting shadows. 

“You will have to help me,” he laughed. 

i88 


The Princess Olga 

His words were so light, his tone so natural, that 
she returned his laugh with a little, amused ripple. 

“Are you afraid of the dark?” she asked. “Or 
can’t you find your way without a guide?” 

“I don’t know how to get in,” he answered. 

She looked her failure to comprehend, her smooth 
brow wrinkling under the candle’s gleam. 

“The door is locked from the inside,” he smiled. 

“But how could that be?” she asked, gayly. 

“I escaped,” he said. “I was free again. I was 
on my way to the Concession. I saw you, and went 
to you — as always,” he added, in a low tone. 

An exclamation of astonishment and half disbelief 
fell from her lips, ripening red to his gaze as he held 
the candle above to peer down into her excited face. 

“I told you,” he said. 

“But how — ^how?” she cried, in a sudden dread 
of the old struggle with his calm strength beating 
down her frail defence of spirit. 

“By the window,” he smiled. “I cannot return 
that way.” 

She gave back from him, a hopeless, weary look 
chasing the fear from her paling cheek. 

“I don’t understand,” she faltered. “I thought 
you had come out with the guard. You are free to 
walk as you will, attended by them.” 

“Guarded,” he corrected her aversion to the ruder 
word. 

“I thought,” she stammered, “when you saw me 
it was like a brief parole, as of yesterday, so that 
they might leave you.” 

“Oh no,” he answered, calmly; “I escaped. I 
had regained my liberty, but, seeing you, I came 
back to talk with you.” 

In his grave gentleness for her misunderstanding, 
13 189 


The Princess Otgd 

his easy manner of referring to his taking leave 
when he pleased, there was a surer arraignment of 
her puny resistance than in any of the scoffing which 
his lips or eyes had given her in their deliberate 
duels. She shrank from him, as if appalled by the 
inexorable fetters which bound her, the captor, to 
his will. 

“Now,” he said, “you must help me. If you can 
find a key to the next room, or to any room looking 
on the gallery, I will open there, go through, and 
thus, having reached the inside of my room by the 
window, be again in possession of its key.” 

She gave a wild look around, and, taking the can- 
dle from his hand in her fingers, shaking, straight- 
way left him. When she returned she dared not 
glance to his eyes lest they were mocking. She held 
out the key. 

“It is for the next room,” she faltered. “Good- 
night.” 

“Yet,” he checked her, “you must go with me, to 
receive back this key, when I have reimprisoned my- 
self — unless,” he added, “you can trust me to hand 
it for safe-keeping to the guard. Would that be 
safe?” 

She veiled her eyes with the long lashes in humility 
for the absurd position in which he held them all, 
and, straightening her shoulders bravely, went with 
him. 

As they arrived in the corridor, the guard, who 
had not seen him pass out, who was waiting for the 
return of General Krag, blinked strangely at the 
pair. He opened his mouth to utter some guttural 
bewilderment, but Madame Vaillant hushed him with 
a lofty, haughty glance. 

Harding unlocked the room next to his, passed in, 
190 


The Princess Olga 

slipped the bolt of the window, and, reaching the 
gallery, traversed it to his own. Madame Vaillant, 
in the hall, heard the firm yet easy tread across the 
floor. In the next moment the key turned, and he 
was before her again, smiling thoughtfully. She 
held out her hand for the key, but he waved her re- 
quest aside for the moment. 

“I will first lock the other from the outside,’^ he 
said. 

He did so, trying the knob to assure himself that 
it was fast. That done, he returned to her the bor- 
rowed key. 

“You will be fearful,” he smiled, “that, after you 
have left me, I shall repeat my flight by the same 
way I departed before. Do not give a thought to 
the suspicion. I have a sense of guilt for the time I 
have already kept you out of bed. I should be 
happy if I could feel able to assure you a night of 
unbroken, sweet rest. For this night — for this night 
only,” he added, somewhat sternly, in French, to in- 
dicate his renewal of restraint — “ I give you my parole 
till breakfast.” 

Drawing the revolver from his pocket, he held it 
out to her, smiling the confident smile at her con- 
sternation 

“Though this property is mine,” he said, quietly, 
“I return it to the custody of your patron. I have 
made a prisoner of him — in your dungeon. I have 
given him company there — one of his soldiers. You 
might send this fellow here to release them. I shall 
not trouble — you have my word.” 

He surveyed her agitated, terrified features with 
composure. The guard, warned by her previous 
look, by the self-possessed bearing of Harding, had 
lumbered away to the other end of the corridor. 

191 , 


The Princess Olga 

She was all a-quiver — her slim form, her dark hair, 
her pale lips. Suddenly he bent near her, breaking 
again into English. 

“Are you not convinced?” he asked, under his 
breath. 

She left him, shaking more violently. He smiled 
a curious, satisfied glance after her retreating back. 
He had not rebolted the window of the room next to 
his. 


CHAPTER XIX 


I F, on the night of his self - interrupted escape, 
Harding had been the compassionate friend and 
gentle lover, he was no less the foe of merciless tongue 
and bearing the next morning — the third day, on 
which he had commanded the presence of Mordaunt. 

At every opportunity he harassed Madame Vail- 
lant with his thrusts and mockeries, stinging where 
he could with a lightly scoffing word, burning with a 
glance of derision. She had never had heart for 
these encounters, however gallantly she held to the 
work of serving her mistress. This day she sought 
to escape him, shunning him if she could ; when she 
could not, looking a stubborn resignation to his 
cruelties. And he followed her persistently, quite 
grimly, his spirits rising as hers sank, his studied 
gayety bubbling with exaggerated force as her de- 
pression settled over her, appearing wan and ex- 
hausted. 

His bold avowal, after his descent from the castle 
roof, that he had been in communication with the 
Concession had left her in a nervous inquietude. 
Manifestly, from that time onward, she was expecting 
some party to remove him to more secure seclusion. 
Owing to the careful intervention of counter-author- 
ity on the Weissburg boundary and the watchful river 
patrol, none had come. Now, since Harding’s easy 
departure at night from the gallery, she hung all day 
in what was an exquisite anguish of suspense for the 

193 


The Princess Olga 

arrival of those whom she had summoned but who 
failed to appear. And he knew the cause of her 
anxiety. As often as she cast a timorous, troubled 
glance towards the door, his calm eye followed it, 
smiling with satiric indifference. When she started 
at an approaching step, he sauntered to see whose 
it was with mock solemnity. 

Upon their assembling at dinner, where she could 
not flee him without the confession which he strove 
to wring from her quivering lip of her surrender to 
the stronger will and greater force, he passed to ex- 
cesses of cold, polished effrontery that were height- 
ened by his conviction that her final defeat was 
within a few hours of acknowledgment. Praising the 
colors in the Crevonian uniform as bright enough 
to be seen across a valley by artillerymen, he was 
counting on the certain identification of his room by 
the sponge which hung at the window to guide Mor- 
daunt. Extolling the lances which had flourished in 
famous tourneys in the Middle Ages — the Lancers 
were the pride of Crevonia — he pictured his aid ap- 
proaching the castle by parths carefully scouted long 
before, and entering the structure through the but- 
tery, where he must dispose of the servant he would 
find there. 

All the while the exhilaration of the experience 
ahead of him lent an almost unbridled daring to his 
discourse, incomprehensible to any of the company 
except her who spoke French. Near the end of the 
meal, when he smiled at the Krags as if he were pay- 
ing her the homage of spendthrift compliments, she 
was holding a sullen silence to escape a breakdown. 

“If madame,” he said, “would enlighten her 
prisoner on one mystery of their acquaintance, he 
would feel richly rewarded for his efforts in behalf of 
194 


The Princess Olga 

the commercial prosperity of Crevonia. Why,” he 
demanded, with the lightest touch in his tone, “did 
mad am e go so far out of her way in Berlin to convey 
a falsehood as to her presence there? It was so 
needless, so inexcusable a falsehood, when she was, 
in fact, in Berlin, to mail him that letter from Paris 
to make him suppose she had not been there.” 

He let his eye run over the group again to inform 
the others that they would applaud his admiration 
of Madame Vaillant if they understood his expression 
of it. 

“I never blamed madame for her r61e of the spy,” 
he averred. “One might very well serve a cause in 
that capacity — if there were no other way — ^honor- 
ably and usefully. I have forgiven even the be- 
trayal of a man who loved her by a trap. One 
might be led into a great wrong by a very passion 
of allegiance to a misguided cause; but so small a 
lie and so useless, madame, yes, so unnecessary! To 
be in Berlin, and, when seen, to telegraph to Paris 
that a letter, previously prepared for such emergency, 
should be posted! And the preparation — so petty a 
conceit in great works! So utterly needless, ma- 
dame,” he repeated, “when it could make no possible 
difference to his plans or to hers if she had been 
seen in Berlin.” 

She would not answer, holding her lips closed till 
they were white, refusing him her gaze. 

“ When the writing of the letter could make no 
difference to either,” he resumed; “when — ” 

But her power of self-restraint was swept away. 
She raised her dark eyes, looking steadily into his. 
When she spoke it was with a taunting pride in 
something she had achieved beyond his scornful 
nullification. 


195 


The Princess Olga, 

“It made sufficient difference,” she said, in a low, 
intense voice, “for monsieur to preserve the letter.” 

She shot him a glance of fury, and laughed, the 
notes running into a nervous tremor. 

“That,” he said, coolly, “was before he realized 
that madame could betray a man who had loved her. 
He neither prizes nor preserves her letters now, since 
there is no longer justification.” 

Last night he had vowed his love under the trees ; 
now he was flaunting her with his abjuration of it 
before that peaceful hour. She was beyond her 
limit of endurance. She flung up her head wildly, 
her chin tremulous. 

“It is false!” she exclaimed, with a sharp cry of 
pain. “He has her letters now — all of them!” 

“To madame,” he replied, very soberly, “he 
promises — ^he swears, as is the custom in Crevonia — 
that, on the very night he was betrayed by her he 
tore the letters she had sent him into bits. He 
wishes he had saved the pieces to show her.” 

She knew that he spoke the truth; she knew no 
less that he had not, would not, destroy his love as 
he had her letters. But, outworn with the contest, 
she stifled a little, choking cry in her white throat. 

They were just arising. Suddenly he crossed to 
her, holding out his hand. When he spoke it was in 
English. 

“Good-bye,” he said, abruptly, and, bowing grave- 
ly to the others, he started for his room, the guard 
following in his wake. 

On the threshold he turned, again speaking in 
English. 

“May I have some paper?” he asked. “I shall 
not require ink, as I have a fountain-pen.” 

Madame Vaillant went to fetch it, needing to 
196 


The Princess Olga 

search at the table across the room, her hands seek- 
ing it eagerly, as if in response to the tongue he had 
used . When she handed it to him her fingers fluttered. 

“Thank you,” he said; and this time he went on 
up, the heavy feet of the soldier sounding above his. 

In the corridor Harding found that another armed 
guard awaited his coming — evidence that, thanks to 
his adventure of the evening before, he was to have 
two watchers, one, as usual, outside of his door, the 
other in the room with him. He had ordered his 
aid to be in his room ; he had no doubt he was there. 
For the moment he made a pretence of objection to 
the second sentry, raising his voice to carry far; 
but, though he knew that they could not under- 
stand English, he addressed the pair in that language 
to inform Mordaunt, if he were at hand, that he 
must have a care lest this new custodian of Har- 
ding prove an unwieldy customer. Then, with a 
fresh manner of indifference, he flung open his door 
and walked in, to find no one there. 

The second guard, however, did not remain 
within, going straight out through the window and 
taking a position on the gallery. Evidently he was 
to be a fixture for the night, or until he was relieved. 

“That is right; stand there by the window,” said 
Harding, in a loud voice, as a warning to Mordaunt, 
wherever he might be. 

He filled his pipe, and, himself leaning out the 
window, began to sing a song in an undertone. 
When he had caught the time it ran on like this: 

“I suppose you are under the bed. Tommy; but 
you must not answer any of my questions until I 
give you the word. The cheerful idiot of a guard is 
standing here before me, and we shall be careful 
until I have explained my plan for getting rid of 
197 


The Princess Olga 

him. If you are under the bed, Tommy, you can 
throw out a match. The Crevonian blockhead will 
not see it, for his eyes are glued on me. He thinks 
I am crazy to sing and smoke this way together.” 

In due time a match was lying on the floor. 

” I had no doubt you were there, Tommy,” the song 
continued, in the monotonous strain. “I hope you 
have had your supper, for you might have to stay 
there for some time, till we can bag this fellow and 
put him where you are now, and the house has 
quieted down for the night. Meanwhile I shall give 
you the plan. The room next to mine on the right 
has the door locked, with no key on either side; but 
the window on the gallery is unbolted, and ought to 
be open, unless some one has closed it since I went 
down to dinner. After a while I am going to take 
this fellow for a walk down to the other end, and 
when we are on the way you must, behind our backs, 
slip into the next room through the window and 
take a pillow-case with you ; you will want it later to 
put over his head. I have been doing many silly 
things since my stay here. Tommy, and my guard 
thinks this singing is the silliest of all. I shall stop 
for a while and then give you the rest.” 

He picked up the match carelessly, and lighted his 
pipe with it. It appeared not to draw, and he 
struck another. This he did four times, throwing 
all burned ends on the floor near the bed. At last the 
pipe puffed to his satisfaction, and he resumed his 
lounging attitude out the window, sending up thick 
clouds of smoke. 

” If you think you have rope enough to tie up this 
clown and, possibly, the one in the hall,” the ditty 
ran on, ” leaving plenty for a thirty -foot escape to the 
ground. Tommy, I don’t think the smoke will permit 
198 


The Princess Olga 

this fellow to see if you remove one of the burned 
matches. Afterwards, when I get a good chance, I 
will look and count them to find if one has gone as 
your answer. He will never know whether there 
were three or four at the start.” 

He puffed comfortably for a while in silence. 
When he turned his face into the room again one of 
the matches was gone. 

‘‘Good, Tommy,” the refrain continued. “Then 
here is the programme: When I walk the length of 
the platform he will follow at my heels; that will 
give you your chance to make the next room with 
the pillow-case. When we come back you must step 
out just behind him as he passes. I will turn and 
take him by the throat at the minute you clap the 
bag over his head. If there is any slip, put a knife 
through him. If it is clear. Tommy, and there is no 
reason you cannot do this, put back the burned match.” 

At the reappearance of the burned end, Harding 
knocked the ashes out of his pipe and went to the 
little table in the corner to write, still humming, but 
very gently, till the indistinct murmur died away on 
his lips. His letter was a farewell. 

“ Mme. Vaillant, — 

“ I am leaving to-night. It maybe necessary — very likely 
it will be — for me to kill some of your people. This will be a 
pity, for they are like sheep; but I can no longer allow them 
to interfere with my movements. 

“ If I must hurt them, madame, I wish you to take the 
blame which is all yours for handling weapons which, in 
your hands, are more dangerous to you and your little fat 
Princess than to any one else. 

“ Otherwise, madame, I have regrets only for the fact that 
you will not heed, will not believe, will not listen to 
“ Your devoted 

“ Gordon Harding.” 


199 


The Princess Olga 

He left the note lying there, face upward, and, re- 
stuffing his pipe, lighted it as he walked out on the 
gallery. He strolled down slowly towards the end, 
his watcher at his heels. For a while he rested his 
arm on the rail at the extreme end, and then re- 
traced his way in the same leisurely carelessness. 
At his own window he stopped, making as if he were 
doubtful if he should re-enter, half turned, began to 
yawn, and like a flash caught his follower by the 
throat. At the same instant the folds of the pillow- 
case came down. 

“Tell him in Crevonian that you will slit his throat 
if he kicks around,” whispered Harding to Mordaunt. 
“Quick; drag him in. Of course, the fool clung to 
his gun and made it child’s play for us. Now to gag 
him, tie him where he can’t stir, and then you in his 
uniform. Tommy.” 

They worked like magic, Harding tearing strips 
from the bedclothes, the point of Mordaunt’s knife 
at the heart of the trussed captive until his mouth 
was so stuffed that he could not make even the 
sound of breathing through it. 

“Now on with his bag of a coat. Tommy, and his 
cap. Take the musket. Much use to anybody ex- 
cept to fool them! There you are! Out of the win- 
dow now, and we have our guard in the proper 
place. And,” he added, with a little oath, “if any- 
body calls him, our sentry can answer in Crevonian. 
S-sh, Tommy! don’t forget his fellow in the hall. 
Before we are through we shall want him.” 

Once more Harding was smoking his pipe out the 
window, the fine smile on the clean, muscled face, 
the new watcher close at hand, his eye alight with 
daring admiration and delight. 

“While we are waiting for them to go to bed, 
200 


The Princess Olga 

Tommy, tell me about your arrival and how you 
made out.” 

“It was so easy!” his Crevonian aid whispered, 
his black eye rolling in ecstasy. “I had the whole 
place scouted night and day. Yes, yes,” he said, 
with joy, “I myself, hidden in the garden last night, 
saw you leap — and afterwards,” he sighed, “only I 
would not look. So this evening there comes an old 
woman with butter and eggs for the castle; and 
when we were inside the buttery I clapped a pistol 
to the head of the fellow who received me. ‘Off 
with your clothes, imbecile,* I commanded, and 
made him put on mine of the woman. Then, me in 
his, to be one of the servants, he must lead me to 
your room up the back stairway. If I had met any 
one, he was the old woman coming for your wash. 
In the dim light no one could have told I was not 
one of them; but there was not a soul. In here I 
unwound the rope from my waist and tied him up 
in a pretty bundle, gagged like the other one — only 
mine was so scared at the revolver he could not 
have uttered a sound if his life had depended on it. 
Then under the bed, the two of us. Is it now for 
the next?” he whispered, with boyish eagerness. 

Harding shook his head. 

“Not yet. Tommy; patrol a bit — only a few steps 
in either direction.” 

Between patrols and pauses at the window, Har- 
ding gave him the rest of the plan. Eying the re- 
volvers which the other had brought him, he un- 
folded the scheme. 

“At the proper time,’* he said, “we shall stroll 
down to the end nearest the river. There is always 
a boat at the landing there. We shall fasten the 
rope to the rail, leaving it in all readiness to throw 
201 


The Princess Olga 

for the descent. Then, when we come back, you 
will station yourself here at the window as usual. I 
shall open the door quietly, and when my guard 
looks up, stupidly, I shall begin to empty my re- 
volvers around him — not to hit him, but that he 
shall flee, setting up a cry, so that the firing and the 
uproar will be heard without as well as within. 
Then you, on the gallery, will shout, frantically: ‘The 
prisoner escapes from within! To the front -door! 
To the front-door!’ — that is the fartherest from the 
river. ‘He has locked his door from the corridor 
side! I will watch his return this way! My fellow- 
guard has cried to me that he is making for the 
front -door! Guard the windows from the great 
hall, my fellow - soldiers ! ’ Shout at the top of 
your lungs. Tommy, so that all may hear and 
that they may not distinguish it is a strange 
voice.” 

Mordaunt grinned into the cool, collected face in a 
manner infatuated. 

‘‘This will send them all to the front — away from 
where we are to descend. Meanwhile, my man hav- 
ing fled down-stairs, I will have returned inside, lock- 
ing the door. I will run to the end where the rope 
is, letting it down. All the while you must remain 
here, shouting to keep attention from my direction, 
until I am on the earth, and with my ground selected 
to cover your descent with a steady fire in case your 
running after me draws them to the scent again. 
You must hand me your pistols, all loaded, after I 
give you mine discharged in the hall. While I lower 
the rope and reach the bottom, and you are shout- 
ing here at the window, you must reload those I ex- 
change with you. Give me ten seconds after I go 
over the rail; then follow. Doesn’t the exercise 


202 


The Princess Olga 

ahead of us bring you a fine appetite for breakfast 
in the Concession, Tommy?” 

“Do we begin now?” whispered the Crevonian, in 
a tense sigh of happiness. 

“No,” cautioned Harding, softly; “patrol — ^patrol 
till the house is abed.” 

He looked at his watch. 

“Half an hour yet,” he smiled. 

The rope made fast to the rail and coiled for the 
throw, Harding walked back to his room, his false 
guard at his heels, cursing the musket in an under- 
tone for engaging his hand when it itched for the 
revolvers in his pockets. Inside, Harding moved 
around as if undressing, called a Crevonian good- 
night in a rather loud voice to the soldier on the 
gallery — that much of the language he knew — blew 
out the candle, and, with a last smile, calmly confi- 
dent, at Mordaunt, who was alert on the platform, 
crossed to the door and opened it, not stealthily to 
attract suspicion, but quietly and deliberately. As 
he stepped out he began to fire rapidly at the guard 
coming towards him in the dim light. But here. 
Harding met an unexpected twist in his plan. In 
the heritage of his race the soldier was stupid. He 
was not a coward. He advanced steadily, bringing 
his archaic weapon to shoulder as he strode. There 
was nothing for Harding to do but stop him. With 
one of his remaining shots he took a true aim, and 
the Crevonian toppled with a long gasp. 

Harding sprang within the door, locking it behind 
him. 

“That is right. Tommy,” he said, coolly; “shout 
like the devil.” 

As he had arranged, he exchanged the pistols, 
203 


The Princess Olga 

reached the balcony, peered over the rail, and, see- 
ing that already those in the grounds had rushed to 
the end where he wished them to be, stole on his way 
towards the river. Over the edge, and down the rope, 
he backed against the wall, a revolver in each hand, 
to hold off possible attack while Mordaunt descended. 
Here he stood till Mordaunt slid down beside him, and 
there was no sign yet of either pursuit or detection. 

Half a dozen yards from the castle, extending 
towards the river till it came upon a field, was over- 
grown shrubbery. Through this they pressed, scarce- 
ly careful not to make a noise, so evident was it that 
no one was following. Behind them the muskets were 
roaring around the great door in so concerted a fash- 
ion as to prove that the guards believed their game 
was somewhere in the lower part of the structure, and, 
with thunderous volleys, they might prevent him from 
venturing forth. 

Having passed through the covert, the pair broke 
into a run, for here, where it was as light as day, it 
seemed impossible that they should not be discov- 
ered. Harding did not care, for now they were sure 
of reaching the boat. 

“Once we are in it,” he said, “and out in the 
stream, we can slip into the water on the opposite 
side and whirl down on the tide.” 

In their wake the din rose higher. If it lightened, 
they heard the heavy voice of Krag roaring his com- 
mands. 

“Plenty of noise, little action,” laughed Harding, 
as they sped. 

“The old one is ordering them to keep on firing 
— to volley,” panted Mordaunt. “The Lord knows 
what at. The fusillades are not aimed this way. 
But, by gad, sir! he is bellowing like a bull.” 

204 


The Princess Olga 

“You couldn’t tell if they were firing at us,” 
scoffed Harding. “Those muskets make the noise 
of a field-gun; but a Crevonian could not hit a man 
with one unless he rammed it down his throat.” 

Now they ran free, Harding drawing ahead of 
Mordaunt as he skirted a little house which stood on 
an eminence overlooking the river. At its far corner 
he stopped with an exclamation, his brow contract- 
ing in a frown, for Madame Vaillant arose before him, 
her eyes distended with horror at the uproar and fir- 
ing, a choking in her bosom. 

Even then, while the two were escaping, he gave 
her an example of the solicitude for her which was 
both watchful and, in its self-control, powerful. 

“Madame,” he said, speaking calmly in English, 
“do not be alarmed.” 

She threw a terrified glance at Mordaunt, behold- 
ing in him, as she supposed, one of her own guards, 
not knowing what was to come of his close chase at 
the heels of Harding. One hand she pressed against 
her heart; with the other she reached appealingly, 
desperately, to him. 

“He will not harm you,” said Harding, quietly. 

“But you!” she gasped. “My God! what shall I 
do?” 

She made as if to step out in the act of command- 
ing her own soldier to something ; but Harding 
checked her with a quick, firm hand. 

“Silence!” he said. “Turn your face! This is 
some one I do not wish to see you. It will be to 
your interest, if he meets you again, that he should 
not know you.” 

He pointed ahead to Tommy, and his aid went 
on, dropping down to a dog-trot till the other should 
overtake him. Madame Vaillant looked in dumb 
205 


14 


The Princess Olga, 

bewilderment at one of her own people taking or- 
ders and following them implicitly from the castle’s 
prisoner. 

Harding continued to gaze on her with a grave 
gentleness. Of a sudden she yielded to the supreme 
emotion which was besieging her, and reeled. In 
his hands he still held the revolvers with which, back 
to the wall, he had shielded Tommy’s descent. He 
laid them quickly on the bench from which she had 
arisen, steadying her with a touch of arm, reassur- 
ingly, protectingly. 

“They are not coming,” he said, coolly, “I am 
in no haste. I shall stay with you until you are 
more composed.” 

She sat down weakly, looking up at him, as he 
imagined, imploringly. 

“Do not be alarmed,” he repeated. 

Regaining her self-command, she stood up.- He 
could see her slight form take on a firmer tension. 

“Will you not say good-night?” he asked. 

“No!” she breathed, passionately, bending back 
from him like a steel band. 

He shook his head with a thoughtful patience. 

“I must be going, then,” he answered, for he 
fancied the din at last began to move in their direc- 
tion. 

He was far from those in pursuit. The boat. 
Tommy at the landing, awaited. He was free, clear 
of interference. He turned, walking at almost a lei- 
surely pace towards the river. 

But Madame Vaillant sprang to the bench, calling 
out in a hoarse, suffocating note: 

“Stop!” 

He wheeled, the gravity of his smile running into 
mockery at what he saw, for she held one of his 
206 


The Princess Olga 

abandoned revolvers directed against him. She was 
trembling violently, her arm wavering, as it seemed, 
uncontrollably; but her little face was set in a very 
passion of infatuation with her cause. 

“You shall not go!” she declared. “You shall not 
rob the Princess Olga!” 

He made her a bow that was affably arrogant. 

“Madame Vaillant,” he retorted, “if you are to 
kill me, you must shoot me in the back,” and he 
marched ahead, his face towards the river, the very 
poise of his head scornful. 

She swayed far forward, her form convulsed with 
emotion. Then, as he went on, while a great burst 
of musketry behind broke over the castle, the shining 
metal in her shaking hand flashed a new light, and 
Harding, without a cry, lay on the turf. Standing 
over him, she was like a slender, white column of 
marble, so motionless, save for the throb of her neck, 
that she might have been lifeless. 

Mordaunt had not heard the snap of her weapon, 
lost under the heavier sound behind. Turning to 
learn why his chief did not follow, he saw him go 
down like a log. That a bullet had felled Harding 
he could not doubt; but who had done the act did 
not flash to him. If he had wondered how it had 
happened he would have concluded that one of the 
stray shots of the wild fusillade back at the castle, in 
an aimless flight, had reached their way. But, run- 
ning back to the little house, his eye taking in the 
truth that none of the soldiers were yet advancing, 
his single idea was to be with Harding, to carry him 
to the boat or to give him what aid he could. 

Coming to the relief at his swiftest stride, his own 
hands naked of any weapon, he found himself facing 
a woman who held a revolver at his head with an 
207 


The Princess Olga 

arm that was now firm, her eyes blazing, their light 
that of the tigress that will protect its own against 
the world. He was too dumfounded to feel the 
shame which he suffered later at this capture of a 
professional soldier with such ease, and by his weak- 
ness — a woman. He gasped , staring at her in an un- 
thinkable wonder. 

She gave him no chance for words. 

“Your master,” she said, in a curiously hushed 
yet tense voice, “is here, dead or wounded, I do not 
know. You may not save him by staying. I will 
kill you if you try to touch him or me. I will let 
you go — by the river — in the boat, if you send here 
only a surgeon, pledging your faith that no steps will 
be taken against us until you have word from him 
that he is able to stand again, or, if he is dead,” she 
whispered, “ till we send his body. Till then I pledge 
mine that nothing shall happen to him — beyond what 
is already done.” 

Mordaunt opened his lips to cry a protest or in- 
quiry; but she cut him short, the fierce animal fire in 
her eyes leaping higher. 

“It is not that you fear to die,” she said; “it is 
the only way to help him. Swear!” 

He gave his oath, mechanically, mumbling. Yet 
he continued to look in awe at the figure which lay 
still at their feet. 

“Go!” she commanded. “For God’s sake, hasten! 
There is no one here to attend him.” 

Without a word he turned and ran like a deer for 
the river. 

Intent on his every movement, she watched him 
until he was gliding away on the shimmer of the 
moonlit water. Then she let the revolver fall from 
a hand now nerveless. She sank on the grass by 
208 


The Princess Olga 

Harding, not lifting his head, not touching him. 
She held her strained gaze on the sinister, creeping 
thing that stole away from his side, glinting horribly 
in the bright rays from the heavens, her stunned face 
whiter than his, still wearing a smile, disdainful not 
of her, but of what she might do. She was there, im- 
movable as he, always staring, when General Krag 
and the others came pounding down the walk. For 
another moment, as she turned her bloodless face up 
to them, she held that dazed look. The old soldier 
was lifting her in his arms when she pointed to the 
door of the little house. 

“Carry him in there,” she said, in hollow tones. 

She started to go in after them with their burden 
of limp, moveless form, but her foot caught, not as 
of one in a faint, but blind. She looked around 
slowly. 

“Has the surgeon come?” she asked, and began to 
weep. 


CHAPTER XX 


T he little house overlooking the river had been 
built a few years before, when the Princess Olga 
had thought of making her residence in the Neutral 
Zone. She had intended it to be a sort of inviolable 
retreat from her own people as well as from others — 
a studio and apartment together, where she might 
withdraw to brood over her wrongs or to meditate a 
happier future. But Madame Vaillant had not hesi- 
tated to invade the Princess’s sanctuary to provide 
a temporary shelter for the wounded prisoner, who 
lay white and still on the dainty bed where they 
stretched him, only the moonlight illumining the 
inner room, until some one brought candles from the 
castle. 

Until the lights arrived she sat by his side, review- 
ing in a trance the work she had done for her royal 
mistress, the tall, solemn Krag standing in silence 
near her. Then she aroused herself, looking around 
again with the wondering, dumb gaze. 

“Is it the surgeon?” she asked; and when she un- 
derstood what it was that had interrupted her be- 
wilderment she shivered. 

So she sat, nobody doing anything for Harding, 
not even stanching the crimson flow from his side 
nor disturbing his garments. The old soldier awaited 
her command, the others outside in hushed excite- 
ment. They were in these postures while Harding’s 
motor-car tore along the Crevonian road, his chauffeur 
210 


The Princess Olga, 

driving it at the top of its power. Mordaunt was on 
the seat beside him, cursing its slowness. In the 
tonneau was Dr. Busche, whom the American had 
brought from Berlin to the Concession. His long, 
black case was open on the seat beside him, and he 
arranged rolls of bandages or fingered instruments. 
At the path which Harding had entered three days 
before, the German ran through the grounds, case in 
hand, following some one there to lead him. All 
night, out in the road, Mordaunt paced a short 
march from the car up the path and back again. 

Old Busche, giving notice neither to Madame Vail- 
lant nor to any one, except to command fresh water 
or an assisting hand here, while he worked with his 
probes, long strips, and other implements, labored 
intently over the inert frame for hours. In the end 
he stood up, surveying for a while the lean, color- 
less face on the pillow, and turned to Madame 
Vaillant. 

“He is all right,” he said, thoughtfully. “He has 
been badly lacerated. No vital spot was touched, 
though the ball passed so close to his heart that it 
has shocked him into this coma.” 

Unmindful of her eager, agitated suspense, he 
looked at the lead which he had extracted, turning 
it in his fingers, and placed it in his waistcoat-pocket. 

“You had better watch him yourself,” he said, 
slowly. He had not asked, did not care, who she 
was. 

She cast him a glance of startled inquiry. 

“I am going back now,” he added. 

“But,” she breathed, in terror, “there is no one 
here who knows what to do. You will not leave 
him — you cannot leave him,” she whispered, in 
sharp anguish. 


2II 


The Princess Olga 

He was replacing in the case the little white reels, 
so smoothly rolled, along with the shining blades. 
He did not raise his eyes. 

“We cannot take him with us,” he answered. “He 
must not be moved. After I have given you the di- 
rections you will be able to do for him.” 

“ Mon Dieu!” she exclaimed, “you will not abandon 
him thus?” 

The old surgeon gave her back a look which was 
very eloquent in its significance. 

“Sitting here, I can do him no good,” he said. 
“He may remain as he is for a day or two. He has 
my work laid out for me — I must not neglect it. I 
will come regularly. Until he regains consciousness 
there is little to do but watch. You will do that as 
well as any one.” 

To her there was something terrifying in the 
authority of this form which, lying senseless on the 
edge of the grave, was yet the master whose work 
must be performed as the ruler of his men had en- 
joined it. He had allotted the daily tasks for 
Busche. The surgeon did not doubt he must fulfil 
them, though Harding himself were all but beyond 
further participation in their results. 

She shrank away from the two figures of the Con- 
cession — the one prostrate and still, dominating the 
other busy with his case of instruments. 

“I will not,” she whispered, hoarsely; “you must 
stay.” 

For his answer he snapped the little silver lock on 
the black box. His gesture informed her that she, 
as well as he, must obey the programme of that will 
which was paramount, though the body was nerve- 
less. 

He went nearer the candle, writing on different slips 
212 


The Princess Olga, 

of paper. He was leaving a thermometer, powders — 
he looked impatiently for a glass to be at hand if the 
patient should come to his senses. 

“You will understand all this,” he said. “It is 
very simple. I have recorded it, so that you cannot 
forget — so that you will make no mistake.” 

There was something more, for he picked up a 
brown bundle, opening it, spreading its contents on 
a table, from which he brushed books and other 
things to the floor. 

“These are signals for the night,” he said. “It is 
very easy to manage them.” He showed her what 
her people should do to discharge them. “In the 
day you may display any sign from the roof of the 
castle — there will be eyes watching for it. If he 
arouses I must be summoned at once. Meanwhile, 
as I say, there is nothing to do but watch. I shall 
come, of course, to dress the wound.” 

He went to the door, leaving her standing, petri- 
fied. It was dawn, and he came back, blowing out 
the candles as a matter of course. 

“Send away the crowd outside,” he directed, a 
little harshly. “They are of no use, except, pos- 
sibly, one to run your errands.” 

He moved off briskly. She dragged herself after 
him, hanging on the threshold for a moment, hag- 
gard in the gray of the morning. Her arm made a 
heavy, sore movement of command to the soldiers, 
and they disappeared, only Krag remaining. She 
went back into the room, stood over Harding for a 
moment, and sat down, with a dogged yet hopeless 
look on her worn, little face. 

Morning and afternoon. Dr. Busche came for three 
days; and every time he found Harding lying in the 
2i3r 


The Princess Olga 

profound sleep. He read her temperature records 
thoughtfully, and himself made new tests. 

“It is odd,” he said; “they climb slowly each 
day.” 

He told her no more. He would have gone away 
with no fresh injunction; but she stopped him, mur- 
muring a desperate fear. 

“It may be,” said Busche, “that he had malaria, 
which he fought off while himself. It may be tak- 
ing hold of him in his weakened condition. This 
would be serious,” he added. “Be sure to take the 
readings accurately.” 

He went off with no other advice. She was too 
depressed to offer further protest. She sat still, 
gazing in the dumb terror at the sheeted form which 
would not stir, though there was always the solemn 
breathing. 

That night she had a rocket set off; but when 
Busche responded quickly there was no marked 
change. He scrutinized her severely, and returned 
to the Concession. Yet he was scarcely departed 
when the temperature began to rise, as it seemed to 
her, with bounds. But Harding, as before, lay help- 
less under the numbing shock. 

It was a quarter to twelve. In one corner, screened 
from the bed, was a table holding the glasses, bottles, 
and other equipment of the sick-room. Where she 
stood near it the light fell on her white face, with her 
eyes dark circled as her raven hair. With a sudden, 
desperate gesture she tore open her bosom, taking 
out a phial; but, with a determined hand, she poured 
from it into a glass, freely, recklessly. She looked 
around guiltily, half shutting her eyes, to the written 
slips which were before her. Her fingers stole back 
to where the button was open at the top of the neck. 

214 


The Princess Olga, 

But she held them suspended in the air, for Harding, 
awake, in his senses, was looking at her with calm, 
questioning eyes. 

At his recovery to normal mind, his detection of 
her meditated act, she made no movement of her 
supple body; but her lips half parted breathlessly, 
remaining so as he gazed at her steadily. 

Then he spoke in slow, serious English. 

“Madame Vaillant,” he said, “I am awake.” 

She did not flinch. Her hand sank, still holding 
the evidence which she had sought to conceal. Her 
face was unexpressive. It would not admit his name- 
less reproof. It would admit nothing. 

“Has Madame Vaillant tried to make amends for 
the faulty aim of her revolver?” he asked, quietly. 

Her lip quivered ; but she would not otherwise 
show that she understood his meaning. 

“Having failed to end me with a pistol-ball, would 
she poison me?” he demanded, calmly. 

Her head wavered slightly; she gave no answer. 

“This, madame,” he went on, gravely, “surpass- 
es even the betrayal of a lover — to strike a sick 
man.” 

Something in her eyes blazed. She was near the 
line of last restraint, where he had so often driven 
her with his derision; but she looked at the wall — 
not sullenly, with courage. 

“Madame Vaillant has been so eager to do this 
deed,” he said, “that she has betrayed herself — not 
some foolish lover.” 

He held his eyes at her throat, where, beneath the 
darker hue, the open cloth revealed flesh dazzling in 
its whiteness. Now it shot scarlet. 

“Madame might restore the phial to its lurking- 
place,” he said; “we shall not use it.” And, though 

215 


The Princess Olga 

her form shook in the folds of her gown, she would 
not defend herself. 

But, if he could scoff as in the days of his physical 
strength, he was very weak, and he lay gasping from 
the exertion of speech or of self-control. He made 
a movement as if to lift himself, trying to offer a 
request, but sinking back. 

She came over to him, speaking in French. 

“What do you wish?” she asked. 

He looked steadily into her eyes, not answering; 
but his feeble hand made the gesture of repeating 
the petition. 

“What do you wish?” she said again, in French. 

His eyes, sunken but eloquent, renewed the de- 
mand for water, or whatever it was he besought. 

She put her lips down near his face, an anguish 
in her look; and when she whispered it was in Eng- 
lish. 

“What is it?” she begged. 

“That you should answer me in that tongue,” he 
smiled. But it was a faint, weary smile, as she sank 
her lids, holding her gaze to the floor. 

“I have one more request,” he said. 

It was the need of the patient, expressed fretfully; 
and she straightened, remaining erect, attentive. 

“That glass — yours — I wish to see it. I wish, my- 
self, to spill it on the floor.” 

She brought it to him. 

He took it in his hand, shaking from weakness; 
and, in the way of the nurse, her arm must support 
him. He looked into her eyes, with a rising light in 
his — not of faith in her, but of supreme confidence in 
the lessons which he must continue to give her — and 
drank it down. 

She uttered a little cry, going away and standing 
216 


The Princess Olga 

against the wall, fastening the button with nervous 
fingers. 

“It is a native remedy for fevers,” she faltered. 

“ I had no doubt of it,” he answered. Then, grave- 
ly: “But, madame, you must know that these acts 
are going beyond what is permissible. In shooting 
me you have done something which might have 
caused you much — trouble” — he smiled over the 
word — “with very powerful influences. I have no 
intention that you shall go on as you have been 
doing. To stop you — to prevent peril to you^to 
spare you that — to end your hallucination — to close 
this farce — I shall denounce you.” 

She waited now, neither timid nor bold ; inflexible. 

“I shall tell,” he said, with a curiously compre- 
hensive smile, “that it was you who shot me.” 

Again the tremor shook her, as if, after defying 
his blow, the recoil of her emotions was more severe 
than the expected stroke. But once more she held 
up her face flndaunted. 

“Are you not ashamed, madame,” he asked, “of 
what you have done to an indulgent friend ?” 

Her eye fell anew; against the wall she trembled. 

“I did not mean to do it,” she whispered, hol- 
lowly. “I thought you might stop at the threat. 
Then — ” She would not say the words. 

“Madame,” he asked, with his grave mockery, 
“had no idea that a revolver — my revolver — would 
shoot?” 

Now her eyes appealed to him. 

“You did not know,” he said, in English and very 
gently, “that the arm was self-acting — without cock- 
ing it fires at the slightest touch.” 

She threw out her arm in a gesture of inexpressible 
thanks to him; then it shook pitifully. But she 
217 


f 


The Princess Olga 

crossed swiftly to the bed, her face set to her duty 
of the nurse, her eyes alight with a firm glow of 
action, as his might have been; for, yielding to his 
overtaxed weakness, he had closed his eyes with a 
fall into a faint. 

When, in a short while, his lids were raised again he 
scanned the strangeness of his surroundings thought- 
fully, his eye taking in paper and pencils which Dr. 
Busche had used. 

“Please write for me,” he said. 

She sat with her back to him, the candle’s rays 
showing the intensity of the blackness of her hair. 

“Write to Mordaunt,” he said; “and send it at 
once.” 

He began in a slow dictation: 

“‘Dear Tommy, — I was not seriously hurt this 
evening. I do not wish’” — But she had dropped 
the pencil, her form in great agitation over his igno- 
rance of the time he had lain there. 

He waited for her to regain her composure. 

“‘I do not wish any attack made,’ ” he went on. 

Probably I shall be knocked up for several days; 
and, if I am to lie still, I will be of as much use on 
my back one place as another. Do nothing about me ; 
but keep things in the Concession humming, so that, 
no matter what turns up, there will be no slip of our 
plans. I shall come over as soon as I am fit; or I 
will send for you to fetch me — perhaps in the car.’” 

He could see that she was writing slowly. He 
paused, that her transcription might catch up with 
him. As she tried to set down the words her shoul- 
ders drooped. She struggled ahead ; then she finished. 

“Let me see it,” he requested. 

Her hand held it before his eyes, which looked a 
mild reproach at her. 


218 


The Princess Olga 

“It is not very well done,” he said, with a faint 
smile. “Would you mind trying again?” 

She retraced the work painfully. Once more he 
inspected it. 

“Thank you,” he said. “Now will you make a 
postscript? Add, please, ‘My friends here are tak- 
ing very good care of me; but I should like to see 
Busche — to learn what this amounts to.^” 

She turned, glancing around in a sort of baffled, 
wild despair. 

“Will you arrange about Busche — our surgeon?” 
he asked. 

She came over, her slight form in a tremor. 

“It was not to-night,” she faltered; “it was several 
— three days ago.” 

“In the letter,” he said, “strike out ‘this even- 
ing’; the rest will stand.” 

“Dr. Busche,” she answered, hurriedly, “has been 
here from the start.” 

“Oh,” he said, simply, running his eyes over the 
room. 

In the days that followed, though his strength was 
slow to return, his spirits stayed at a high level. 
His air was as unconcerned as when the guard had 
dogged him through the castle grounds, or he had 
goaded her with his various whims. Soon Busche 
was missing a call now and then. There came a 
time when the surgeon might omit a visit for more 
than a day. She, however, maintained her atten- 
tion of the nurse. It was written on her resolute 
face that she held the responsibility to be hers of 
restoring him to what he had been on that night 
when the lockless hair trigger had stretched him at 
her feet. And often her eyes told him that this was 
219 


The Princess Olga, 

not because she abated her purpose, but because she 
had wished to shrive herself for a betrayal which 
had led to such consequences. Her form might 
shake, her lips fall apart weakly, or her hand appeal 
to him, but the flame of devotion to her cause rose 
again and again behind the dark lashes. Never- 
theless, sitting apart, in long silences, she brooded 
heavily over her self-inflicted punishment to satisfy 
her conscience. 

“What is it you are thinking?” he asked once, 
with a sympathetic touch. 

It was a day when he had crawled out one sunny 
afternoon for a few minutes in a chair. 

She gave him a glance, revealing her self-accusa- 
tion, ever pressing her. 

“You saved my life,” he said. 

His tone had a free, boyish ring, as he laughed 
lightly. Her face brightened all up for the moment, 
shading again to sombre lights at his next remark. 

“In the way pins saved the life of the little girl — 
by not swallowing them,” he smiled. 

“Please don’t,” she said, in English. 

“But I must fit into these situations as I find 
them,” he answered, thoughtfully. “I will gladly 
forget any of them that you will,” he added, ear- 
nestly. 

On the next evening, when he was dozing, she 
went to the castle for a brief visit. He was so well 
started on the sure road to recovery that she left no 
one near him. 

When she returned, coming in with a little, eager 
carriage of expectancy, as she now often showed, to 
estimate his gains from hour to hour, the room was 
eloquent of his absence. After one hurried, startled 
glance, somehow she knew what was afoot, and 
220 


The Princess Olga 

straightway ran to the river. It was dark, with the 
thick shades of rain clouds, ready to open, lying low 
down; and she could see no sign of him as her slim 
form flitted along the path towards the landing. 
Then she stopped, pressing her hand to her side as 
she had done that other night, looking for Mordaunt, 
in the coat of one of the guards, to fire at the pris- 
oner ; for she had come up with him. 

He was on the last stage of a slow, hard journey 
to the boat. He had dragged himself from the bank 
out on the pier. For the moment, before casting off 
the painter, he leaned weakly against the bitt to 
which it was fast. He had around him the cloak 
which Busche had brought him from the Concession 
for the time when he should be able to go out-of- 
doors, and he was huddled in it. The picture of this 
attitude, to what she had seen him in the flush of 
his energy and power, made her cry out as if some- 
thing hurt her fiercely. 

She saw him slip down on the boards, resting 
there; and she went to him like a spirit floating out 
of the night, breathing protest and fear. 

He smiled up at her, apologetically. 

“Will you unfasten it for me?” he asked. 

At the confession of his mere mist of strength to 
carry him through the escape he had planned she 
shivered pitifully. 

“Are you trying to punish me more?” she whis- 
pered, in tense tones. “What would you do?” 

“ I am going down to the Concession,” he answered. 

For an instant they fought the battle in silence, 
she looking desperate, he with the old confidence 
shining on the thin, white face. Then she threw 
out her arm in surrender of this one point, choking 
down some cry. 

15 221 


The Princess Olga 

“I will have our people help you,” she exclaimed, 
turning away her eyes and holding them towards the 
castle. 

But he denied her harshly. 

“I want no help from them,” he said; “I am go- 
ing alone.” 

He attempted to rise, and failed. 

“Will you go away, please,” he said, “until I get 
into the boat?” 

“You cannot!” she cried, vehemently. “You will 
never be able to do it. You are — ” 

“I will do it,” he said, simply. 

“Let them help you,” she implored. 

“None of them,” he answered, grimly. 

“Let me,” she whispered, timidly. 

He bowed his assent with the grave smile. 

“I think you owe it to me,” he agreed, quietly. 

Her arm assisted him to his feet, and, with steadi- 
ness, she handed him into the stern of the boat, 
watching him crawl towards the waist and fumble for 
the oars. But she slipped past him to the next seat, 
and, as they swung out on the current, took them 
from him. 

“I don’t think you can do it,” he said, reclining 
to conceal his own helplessness. 

She struggled courageously with the blades, but 
could make nothing of the work. 

“Let it drift,” he said, wearily, and leaned farther 
down. “When we come to the island I will man- 
age.” 

He allowed his lids to cover the gray eyes, which, 
through all, had shone the high light; and, surveying 
him in that attitude, her body forward, in its in- 
tensity of anxiety, she breathed a sigh that was 
near a moan. 


222 


The Princess Olga, 

“You are tired,” he said, not opening his eyes. 
“You should not have tried.” 

She sat straight up, looking as if she were steel to 
the diamond of any one. He did not raise the lids. 

It began to rain, and she stirred as if she would 
draw the cloak more closely around him. Looking 
at her now, he slipped it from his shoulders, offering 
it to her. But she shrank far back from him. 

She had on the thinnest summer frock, and, going 
to the castle and back, was bareheaded. He smiled 
with the grave patience. 

“Put it on, please,” he commanded. 

She was in such fear of what it would mean to him 
to be wet and chilled that she sat stricken speechless. 

“I shall not wear it,” he said, in the old, easy 
voice. 

He laid it in her hand, inclining so far forward for 
the motion that she could see, with that cover gone, 
a damp, ominous splotch on the side where his 
wound was, warning her it had partly reopened. 

“In mercy’s sake!” she faltered. 

He had gone back to his former position, the 
wasted face inflexible. 

With a sudden, passionate gesture she seized the 
garment and cast it into the river. 

“I will not,” she wailed. 

For the moment it floated on the current along- 
side of them. She snatched it in again; but now it 
was heavy with sogginess. 

“It will do no good now to either,” he said. 

In her shame over the new lesson he was reading 
her, she gave a short sob, and the rest of the tide 
they drifted in silence under the drizzle. 

When they could descry the branches of the island 
sweeping the river’s surface he sat up. 

223 


The Princess Olga 

“ If you will take only one oar — your left,” he said. 
“I can show you how we shall work in with little 
effort.” 

She followed his directions with a painful anxiety 
to perform them correctly, and the boat edged close 
to the shore. 

“It is all in understanding what you are doing,” 
he said, with quiet significance, and she threw up 
her face with the old defiance there; but, at the set 
look of controlling pain on his, her lashes sank. 

“Don’t go in any farther — yet,” he cautioned her. 
“It is better to come here heralded and accredited.” 

Once before he had warned her of the danger of 
approaching heedlessly on his blasting. In a new 
fright she studied his features. 

“Wait,” he said. 

Some one called out in a clear, high shout, asking 
who was there. She was making to answer with a 
nervous, excited cry; but he hushed her. He gave 
a long, curious whistle, sounding at the end like the 
dying note of a bugle. 

Then she heard a word, winging like lightning, 
passed from mouth to mouth far away into the dis- 
tance; but there was no commotion. Yet she knew 
the air behind the gloomy trees was instinct with 
tense expectation; and more — a sort of exultation in 
leash. 

In a moment another boat shot out, skimming 
swiftly towards them. The man standing in the 
bow, all dripping, scarcely looked at her, peering for 
a second into the face over the stern and straighten- 
ing to a new attention. Harding tipped a little nod 
with his head. 

“Tow us in as we are,” he said. 

“Yes, master,” was the calm response. 

224 


The Princess Olga 

As they glided in there was no other word; none 
when they supported him to shore. Just as Mor- 
daunt came running up Harding had a cloak thrown 
on his shoulders, indicating the same service for 
Madame Vaillant in her boat. 

“Send for Busche,” he commanded; but the sur- 
geon also was arriving. 

Harding pointed to the boat from which he had 
been taken. 

“Doctor,” he said, “tow it back, with a couple of 
men.” 

Madame Vaillant gave a smothered cry. Busche 
was needed for the reopened wound. He was being 
sent to escort her. He was climbing in, along with 
her, giving no sign of recognition except a respectful 
bow. In an eager anguish she whispered to him; 
but Busche looked at her with the same eyes which 
had answered her when she had begged him to stay 
with Harding on the night of the shooting. The 
surgeon gave his orders to the men. The boats be- 
gan to move up the river. She held her face down, 
her lip quivering. 

“Good-night,” called Harding, giving no name. 

From the little party on the water there was no 
reply. Those standing in the thin rain on the island 
heard the steady grind of the oars in their locks. 


I 


CHAPTER XXI 


NE of Harding’s earliest improvements at the 



Concession — and for Crevonians an innovation 


— ^had been a regular hospital corps to care for the 
sick and injured, who, among several thousand em- 
ployes, were not infrequent. On the Forest Island, 
under his direction, there was stiller work for men 
than bandaging fractured limbs and nursing cuts and 
other wounds. The peasant women of Crevonia 
were strong of body, accustomed even to work in the 
fields, less awkward than their brothers, though of 
equal stupidity, and docile under training and disci- 
pline. They had been enlisted for the hospital ser- 
vice, and, like dumb animals, with ox eyes and stolid 
faces, performed their work indifferently well. 

Convalescing in his quarters from his gun-shot 
wound, reopened on his brief voyage by the river, 
Harding had his treatment at the hands of the Con- 
cession surgeon and the black-eyed nurses who were 
of his own institution. Mordaunt was for sending to 
Berlin for the best attention that could be obtained, 
but Harding had countermanded those plans. 

“Put our own nurses in here. Tommy,” he had 
said, with a faint smile. “What is good enough for 
our people is good enough for us”; and Mordaunt 
had shed protesting tears while he executed his or- 
ders. Thus, through the weeks of his recovery, Har- 
ding had the not overdeft ministrations of the dark- 
skinned natives, in their uniforms of linen-swathed 


226 


The Princess Olga, 

heads, an amplitude of heavy woollen dress, and crim- 
son wristlets above their coarse, red hands. Mor- 
daunt never watched one of them give a glass to his 
chief or take away a tray without muttering impre- 
cations against the clownishness and ignorance of his 
own race. But the patient lay with the composed 
smile on his bleached features. 

Time ran on, and the hum continued in the Con- 
cession. If the accusations of Madame Vaillant 
were true, and the heart of the island concealed 
troops drilled and seasoned to help Prince Alexander 
when his uncle, the King, should die, no power 
offered to interfere or so much as make inquiry; 
and, indeed, there was ground for suspicion, since it 
became generally known that numerous employes 
of the Concession who went into the innermost re- 
cesses of the grant stayed there. If they did not die 
there, it was strange that once within they did not 
reappear. Those working in the mills and forests 
where the timber was stripped, and in the outer 
depots, no more entered the vale of mysterious dis- 
appearance than the others came out. 

With the powers ignoring anything that went on 
at the island, it was not likely that the agents of the 
Princess Olga would be able to penetrate where those 
of the company itself could not. On the visit of 
Madame Vaillant there, Harding had warned her 
that there was danger to the life of one approaching 
too near the blasting; and, as she had heard, that 
sound was not the slow growl of the Crevonian 
musket in the hands of the castle guards, but the 
sharp, rattling snarl which had warned her acute 
senses of subtle dangers more threatening than if 
one should stumble against a blast clearing roads and 
splitting granite. 


227 


The Princess Olga 

The activity at the Concession, then, following the 
return of Harding, was very orderly, fertile of re- 
sults, as the traffic to Weissburg attested, and quite 
as usual. 

Harding, lying the long hours on his back, was 
giving his instructions to his zealous and untiring 
Crevonian aid, with the assurance he would have 
displayed had his lean figure, in its inconspicuous, 
brown khaki, strode the Concession with the military 
spring of foot and firmness of carriage. 

“If a certain man should die. Tommy,” he smiled, 
“and I were still on my back, do you think you 
could do it for me? You could take me along on a 
litter. A man is as well off one place as another if 
he must stay flat.” 

“God, if you would let me — ^under your eye!” an- 
swered the Crevonian, between his teeth, his dark 
skin afire with joy. 

“I’d trust you. Tommy.” 

“Because I am your handiwork — thank God!” de- 
clared the other, in a passion of man’s devotion to 
his virile ideal. 

“Because you are a good fighter — and are going 
to make a good soldier. Tommy,” said the sick man, 
quietly. 

Mordaunt ran out to the little porch to draw 
quick breaths, for somehow the calm exterior of the 
leader, as strong of spirit in his hospital cot as when 
on his muscle-lined legs, froze the emotions which 
leaped to him all hot. 

“But I hope he will live till I crawl out-of-doors,” 
said Harding, musingly, when the other had return- 
ed. “I want to make a clean job of it, and to be on 
the job myself; then back to my own country. You 
don’t think the old sinner would play me such a 
228 


The Princess Olga, 

mean trick as to go off before spring while I am 
strapped on this sort of thing, do you, Tommy?” 

“Heaven forbid!” ejaculated Mordaunt. “And 
he will not,” he ran on, fervently, “because it is 
your will to do this, and you will — ” He did not 
try to express his glorification of his chief. 

“But a hole through the middle of a man,” smiled 
the invalid, “is a neat little argument against run- 
ning foot-races. If they had continued their fire, 
Tommy — ” 

“Oh,” cried Mordaunt, “how was it? I have 
never understood.” 

“When one comes a cropper, Tommy,” answered 
Harding, with the inscrutable smile, “the important 
question is not where you are corning from, but 
where you are going to land. It cannot make much 
difference to us now,” he added, dismissing the sub- 
ject. 

But when the last spring thaw had swept across 
the country from the south and the air of the island 
was so mild that the window directly over Harding’s 
head could be open all day long, he summoned the 
German surgeon. His face still hollow under the 
cheek-bones, the eyes yet far back, he smiled a sort 
of derision at fate. 

“Dr. Busche,” he said, quietly, “I suppose this is 
going to send Mordaunt half crazy ; but I am in for 
a little drive of fever that will be nasty — an old ac- 
quaintance of the tropics, which I picked up years 
ago surveying rubber lands under the equator in 
South America. I have had it clip me since, at 
times. There was a touch of it just before I came 
over here. That was how I happened to be free for 
this engagement — I was lying off for a while.” 

229 


The Princess Olga, 

He looked up into the anxious eyes working under 
shaggy brows. 

“It is stealing into my head. I know the fellow; 
there is no other sense like it. And, doctor, when 
that thing takes me I am a perfect fool about it — I 
go crazy. This is my weak spot. The Chagres left 
it to me for something by which to remember the 
tropics forever. You will have me cutting up badly, 
doctor; and, for goodness sakes, don’t let Tommy 
Mordaunt carry on about it. Just load me up with 
quinine or something by the pound, and knock it 
out in a couple of days. But during those two days 
I shall be all crazy. And, doctor, if by a chance 
you have a nurse in the corps that knows anything 
— anything — about fever, put her in here. I shall be 
a raving lunatic.” 

And Dr. Busche hurried out of the house in 
more of a panic than the Concession had ever seen 
him. 

“Good God! if he should have typhoid malaria in 
his weakened condition — typhoid malarial” he was 
muttering. 

Tommy Mordaunt met him, with those mumbling 
lips and distracted features. 

“God Almighty!” cried the Crevonian, “what is 
the matter?” and, without waiting for a word of ex- 
planation, made a burst for Harding’s quarters. 

Thirty minutes later Dr. Busche installed the 
nurse who knew the most of fever. She had all the 
Crevonian characteristics — the round eyes, dark 
skin. In her bulky woollen dress she was squat, 
with the heavy, lethargic appearance which infuri- 
ated Mordaunt against his country. But, directions 
given to her, she was cool to carry them out. She 
could listen without saying anything, understand 
230 


The Princess Olga 

without asking questions, and she could act with 
more decision than was usual in her race. 

The Crevonian woman, with the German surgeon, 
as Harding had warned, had a patient who was in 
the wildest excesses of fever — babbling, shouting, 
commanding, pleading, raving. 

“For God’s sake, send to Weissburg — to Berlin!” 
groaned Mordaunt. “Never mind what his orders 
are — what he will do afterwards about our breaking 
them.” 

“Hush!” commanded the German, sternly; “so 
long as there is a breath of life in him he is the 
master. He has forbidden us.” 

Mordaunt wheeled on the slow nurse, gazing 
stolidly on the scene. 

“Do you know anything at all about fever?” he 
cried, fiercely. 

She stared at him, shaking her head doubtfully. 

“Go away!” the surgeon admonished Mordaunt, 
severely. “Leave him to us. He will be better, or 
he will be dead in forty-eight hours. This is no time 
to parley.” 

Through the first day and into the next Dr. Busche 
and the nurse kept a ceaseless vigil. Once the fever 
had dropped suddenly, like a tropic storm, and the 
patient slept. The watchers had been at the bed- 
side for longer than human endurance. When Har- 
ding was quiet the surgeon drove the nurse off for 
her first brief rest, making her leave the house to 
enhance its effect. She had come back to find the 
fever returned and still higher, the patient more 
violent. Busche stayed on. 

The temperature raged past the forty-eight hours 
which he had fixed as the limit, but in the night it 
231 


The Princess Olga 

again subsided. The German watched the patient 
once more drawing long breaths of sleep, then sent 
the nurse away again for her opportunity of rest. 

That morning he had despatched a note out of the 
Concession. While he waited there came a hooded 
figure, which, at his direction, passed within un- 
checked, though escorted to the door. When Ma- 
dame Vaillant arrived he was pacing the floor, his 
hands behind him, like a university professor study- 
ing a problem ; he was striving to keep awake. 

He looked at her thoughtfully, with some regret 
for her and much more for others who need not be 
revealed to any of them. 

“That night when we rowed back,” he said, 
gravely, “I promised you that I should let you 
know about him; that, if he were likely to die, I 
would permit you to come. Though he is sleeping 
like a child now, the chances are against him. He 
could not possibly survive another burning up. We 
shall know in a few hours.” 

She made no movement; her small, pale features 
betrayed no feeling. 

“You were a successful nurse before,” he smiled, 
slowly, with a paternal light on his rugged counte- 
nance. “I am near the end of holding on. If, while 
he is quiet, you will watch him, I will let go for a 
while.” 

He went in with her, scanning the patient drawing 
long breaths of sleep. 

“Call me,” mumbled Busche, “if he wakes. If 
the fever rushes on him again — ” His breaking off 
was ominous. 

He staggered out into the air, lying down in the 
roadway like one drunk, buried in exhausted slumber. 

Though Harding began to stir, he did not awaken. 

232 


The Princess Olga 

Then the respirations quickened in the way that is 
more painful to the observer, perhaps, than any 
other merely sympathetic sensation in human ex- 
perience. The fever was surging up; but it did not 
arouse him. 

She went over, bending low, reading the lines of 
his face, wasted infinitely more than when he had 
lain in the little studio, with the wound draining his 
vitality. But her presence seemed, for the moment, 
to calm him. He lapsed again into the even breaths. 
Going aside, she sat down, her eyes fixed on the man 
whom she had brought to this, when others seemed 
so powerless to check him. Her head sank, dark 
shadows flitting over her face. 

Then he was awake — but in the wild flight of de- 
lirium. For the while she did not summon Dr. 
Busche, as she had been enjoined; for Harding was 
calling her name — the name of the days in the 
Uralia. She shivered as she heard it; and, at his 
other words, she leaned far back in a tension of sus- 
pense, her eyes closed, the dark lashes fringing her 
cheek of the color of chalk. 

“Send her word,” he muttered — “Mademoiselle 
Vaillant — that it was not her fault — that I was 
foolish to go — to do something unnecessary — ^not to 
blame — in the rain — the damp — the chill — ” He 
shuddered as the one who is consumed with fever 
can. “It was the rain — I did it — cut out the foliage 
— sun — air — the jungle always stifles when you are 
cold — not to blame — my fault — foolish — childish — 
Mademoiselle Vaillant.” 

She had stolen to him, trembling from an irre- 
sistible agony of remorse. But her palpitating pres- 
ence no longer quieted him. He began to battle with 
overwhelming forces. For an instant she hung in 

233 


The Princess Olga 

horror over his struggles. Then a great flush of 
shame swept her white face — shame for a supersti- 
tion to which she had before resorted to save her 
from the full penalty of her act — yet fear lest her 
faith in it should fail her now at the supreme test. 
She had the phial once more, tearing it from her 
bosom, thrusting the tiny neck over the glass with a 
half-maddened hand. She ran her arm under his 
shoulders desperately, bringing him partially up- 
right. Still her presence was lost to him — he was 
beyond the call to sanity of her or of anything, un- 
less it was the charm in the native herb which could 
pluck him back. Murmuring, she offered it to him, 
and he took it. She let his head down quickly, and 
started for the door to summon Busche. She did 
not know he had gone beyond the little porch, and, 
not finding him there, she ran back wildly. 

'‘Mademoiselle Vaillant,” Harding called, in the 
near yet far-away voice. “Tell her — my foolishness 
— tell her — Mademoiselle Vaillant — “ 

She sped over to his side. Now again her pres- 
ence lulled him. His quick, sharp breaths were 
stilled. He was so calm she was frozen to the 
floor. 

“Mademoiselle Vaillant,” he murmured, drowsily. 

He was free of the fever; he wotdd awake. She 
floated out, her eyes streaming a light of mystery. 

On the steps of the porch she met Mordaunt, who 
had stumbled over Dr. Busche down on the turf be- 
low. His face fired with his unquenchable suspicion 
of his own race, but, at sight of her aspect, he gazed 
at her in awe. 

“I want to go,” she said, as if in a dream. “He 
is waking. Call Dr. Busche. I must go. Dr. 
Busche!” she repeated, in imperative tones. 

234 


The Princess Olga 

Mordaunt looked at her again, and dropped his 
glance to the floor. 

“Wait here, please,” he said, in a low voice. “As 
soon as I have called Dr. Busche I will have a con- 
veyance to take you.” 


CHAPTER XXII 


D ogwood was gleaming white in the bright, 
spring sunshine when Harding again moved 
among his people in the Concession. His frame in 
the familiar khaki was thin, but with its old carriage 
of easy command. In the hollow of the cheeks still 
lay the calm, confident smile. The gray eye sent 
the steady, sure light to all the men and the works 
on the Forest Island. 

The Princess Olga had not proclaimed her demand 
for the throne of Crevonia, for the King still lived. 
His country droned its sleepy life ; his army was quiet 
in the capital, where the military was wont to idle its 
hours in the wine-shops. 

Yet, after a day spent in the innermost recesses of 
the Concession, Harding told Mordaunt that the 
King would not last the next month out. 

“His physicians,” he smiled, “have warned 
friends of mine to that effect, and they have been 
good enough to take me into their confidence. You 
have done well here. Tommy, while I have been 
wasting good time for work watching the birds 
through the window; but at least, during my con- 
valescence, I have learned some of your language. 
You have done a great deal; there is much more to 
do — ^we have a month or two in which to do it.” 

In those weeks the traffic to Weissburg slackened 
and then stopped. The flow from the duchy to the 
Concession continued in . swelling volume. Though 
236 


The Princess Olga 

no products of the mines and the timber lands went 
out to the world, the hum in the little domain over 
which ruled the competent and composed American 
rose ever higher. But no confusion, no din; all was 
orderly as ever, with that snap which brings the 
sparkle of enthusiasm to any eye beholding it, and 
that stamp of rigorous discipline which moulds a re- 
flection of itself in the very air. 

Harding had promised Madame Vaillant more 
than once that no army was secreted in the sylvan 
depths to be a last resort of Olga’s cousin. Prince 
Alexander. There was every indication now that 
there was. Any stranger casually observing the 
tokens of the place could not have failed to detect 
the signs — military tones of voice, military swing 
of figures, military atmosphere. But no strangers 
passed the gate-houses like sentry-boxes. Men well 
inside stayed in; even the drivers who cracked their 
lashes all day long on the road from Weissburg were 
halted at the circle, to go no farther. At night they 
slept in a camp, guarded as much against egress of 
the inmates as against intrusion on them. There 
was no attempt to disguise the presence of these 
guards after dark; on their shoulders they carried 
rifles, as if at the outpost of a bivouac. Yet there 
were no murmurs; every one was content. 

Then, on a starry night, a column of men swung 
out the esplanade past the gate-houses, and, wheel- 
ing on the Crevonian road, towards the interior, 
moved all through the dark hours, swiftly. Behind 
came two-wheeled vehicles, coupled in pairs, the 
tandem gun-carriages rolling noiselessly, save for the 
clank of harness, through the dust of the highway, 
brass glittering coldly to the stars. 

At the head of the column rode Harding, cloaked, 
16 237 


The Princess Olga. 

for, though the balm of late spring was in the air, 
his blood still ran thin from his illness. To Mor- 
daunt, at his side, he talked in the tone he might 
have used to Madame Vaillant when they discussed 
ordinary topics on the deck of a steamer. 

At daylight the body of soldiers — they were only 
a few hundred — went quietly into camp. Thirty 
miles back the road the usual traffic of the Conces- 
sion resumed its flow into Weissburg. 

The King of Crevonia still lived. Death, however, 
was lifting his crown by inches. Harding had come 
out part of the way to let any one know whom it 
might concern that he was prepared to receive in 
trusteeship the cap of sovereignty when it was off 
and ready to be transferred. Meanwhile he waited. 
There was no movement of his force that day, nor in 
the night that followed. 

On the second morning he removed the glove from 
a mailed fist — to strike not an enemy outside, but 
some of his own within. 

“Tommy,” he said, “your reports show that in 
the night half a dozen of our men went out foraging 
against orders.” 

Mordaunt flushed to the roots of his hair. In 
Crevonia it was tradition that war spelled rapine. 
In the wake of every army within the memory of 
man there had been a trail of blasted homes and 
despoiled womanhood. These troops were good sol- 
diers — Harding’s iron mould had made them so. 
They were loyal, leaping in sympathy to his strong 
spirit; they would be brave. But the ancient pas- 
sion in their blood for what was in effect a national 
heritage of privilege when under arms had burst 
forth in a few instances. There were the reports 
faithfully submitted by Mordaunt. He had not been 
238 


The Princess Olga 

able to suppress that appetite completely. He ob- 
jurgated his race for its rupture, in whatever degree, 
of the trust of Harding; but he laid the whole truth 
before his captain and master. 

“Drum-head court-martial,” said Harding, quietly; 
“firing squads at sundown.” 

For the only time in his life Mordaunt questioned 
his chief. Here was a national custom, almost a 
religion. The simple will of Harding had all but 
eradicated it ; there had been a lapse ; to vent so ter- 
rible a wrath pn the culprits for their first offence — 
what might its effect be on the little army, happy 
as children this bright morning, under his command! 
He stammered half a word and, at the frown on the 
other’s brow, stopped. 

“Drum -head court-martial,” repeated Harding, 
sternly. “Front the companies into line; pick out 
the men on this list — three paces to the front. I 
will select the firing squads.” 

Turning without a word, Mordaunt went to as- 
semble the force. 

“Tommy,” Harding called, quietly, when the 
other had gone a few feet, “if I pass over this breach 
they will do it again — and more. This execution will 
end it. Not only will it save both the honor and the 
efficiency of this command, it will spare many other 
of our men from a like fate.” 

He followed slowly after his lieutenant, going to 
his horse and mounting, no more wrath on his face, 
no more hardness in his eye, than when explaining a 
simple lesson to Madame Vaillant. 

Out in front, at the command of Mordaunt, 
ranged the five raiders who had broken both the 
faith and the authority. 

“These men,” said Harding, to the soldiers, in a 

239 


The Princess Olga 

clear voice, ringing by only so much as it gave the 
military pitch to his words, “left the camp last night 
to rob hen-roosts and terrorize women when they 
did not attack them. I deliver no preachment on 
the wrong of their acts; they broke orders. They 
will be shot at sundown.” 

A sudden stir shook the ranks; but at the light 
which leaped from Harding’s eye, running down the 
line and back again, every form stood at attention, 
immovable. 

“For each man who is to die,” he went on, “I 
shall select a squad. I myself shall see that the 
shell of one rifle in each squad shall fire blank. No 
one else will know, neither the man firing nor any one 
else but me.” 

He turned in his saddle to Mordaunt. 

“The orders are,” he said, “that no more men 
leave camp. Going out or coming in, they are to be 
shot at the sentry -post, without further report.” 

He trotted his horse to the right of the line, and 
then came along it slowly, ordering out the members 
of the squads, calling them by their numbers in the 
fours — two paces to the front. 

There they were — the five in front; next, the forty; 
behind, the army; over all the hush of tense expect- 
ancy, broken only by the jingling bit chains of his 
mount. Once more he spoke to Mordaunt calmly: 

“March the squads to my tent, and have them 
deposit their arms there for reloading by me. Let 
them withdraw till they are assembled again. Send 
blanks.” 

He rode away to headquarters with no glance at 
executioners or condemned. 

In his army he had given the right to every one, 
upon petition, to appear before him with complaints. 

240 


The Princess Olga 

There came a young soldier whom he had designated 
for one of the squads. He was scarcely more than a 
boy, not stout, like the usual Crevonian, in the ab- 
surd, long - skirted, baggy uniform which Harding 
permitted as a concession to hoary tradition, but 
trim and erect, as he had shaped so many of them 
despite their racial characteristics. The private was 
not shamefaced, but bold in his plea that the com- 
mand for him to serve in a firing squad might be 
changed. 

Harding could show sympathy for natural aver- 
sion to such a task while holding the soldier to a per- 
formance of it with inflexible will. 

“I can see,” he smiled, kindly, “you are not 
afraid to kill a man at my command and in the dis- 
charge of a soldier’s duty. I understand it is not 
that,” he added, encouragingly. “You shrink from 
shooting a comrade — ^perhaps a friend — possibly even 
a relative.” 

The young soldier nodded eagerly. 

“But you see,” Harding went on, smiling gravely, 
“you, as well as your captain or general, have your 
duty to perform. This is hard, but it is a duty. It 
must be performed.” 

The other shook his head dismally. 

“If you can assure me that one of the men who 
are to die is a relative,” he said, “I will take care 
that you shall not be in the squad which executes 
that one.” 

The soldier could not find that refuge, admitting 
there was no relative. 

“I don’t want to kill any of them,” he said, ear- 
nestly. “War is war, but this — to shoot one’s fel- 
lows who cannot even fire back — seems like mur- 
der.” 


241 


The Princess Olga, 

“It is execution," assented Harding, quietly; “it 
is meant to be such." 

“I can’t do it," stammered the other. 

“You will," replied Harding, quietly. 

“I refuse!" cried the soldier, hoarsely. 

Harding stepped to the entrance, calling to his 
orderly. 

“Ask Colonel Mordaunt to come here," he com- 
manded. 

He sat down at a little field desk, going over some 
maps, paying no further attention to the soldier till 
his aid arrived. Then Harding did not take his eye 
off the chart, following a line and pencilling spots on 
it at intervals as he spoke. 

“Put this man under special guard, held for 
mutiny," he said, in the tone to convey the idea of 
how little importance the case was to him. “Se- 
lect a substitute for him in his squad. When I 
get around to it I will give further orders about 
him." 

He went on studying and marking the map. 

In supervising the execution and the routine of 
the camp, which he had go on as if nothing unusual 
were taking place, Harding forgot the mutinous 
prisoner in the guard-tent, or did not deem him of 
sufficient moment for immediate attention. The 
sentence of the court-martial executed, with the 
sharp volley rattling over the plain, he set himself 
to consideration of plans and marches with Mordaunt 
in his tent. It was quite dark, the lantern in use, 
when he reached once more for the maps, which 
served to remind him of the soldier who was guilty 
of disobedience of orders. 

“Oh, that fellow in the guard-tent. Tommy," he 
said. “I want to tell you about him; he is a spy." 

242 


The Princess Olga, 

“A what!” cried Mordaunt, swearing that such a 
thing could not be possible in their army. 

“And the worst of it is,” Harding went on, seri- 
ously, “ I can’t have him shot, because it goes against 
the grain to stand up against a wall a woman — ” 

“A woman!” ejaculated Mordaunt. “Now, by 
gad, sir! that can’t be. How could a woman fool 
the — how could she pass the examination? It can’t 
be, by gad, sir!” 

“Suppose,” smiled Harding, “I wanted the spy to 
see just what we have, and just what we are; and 
suppose I told Busch e — ” 

“Oh, hell! of course,” burst out the Crevonian. 

“Put the prisoner in handcuffs. Tommy; march 
him out to the Weissburg road between two soldiers; 
have the machine a hundred yards down the way, 
around a turn there, at nine o’clock.” 

Mordaunt went to fulfil the command. 

“Don’t forget to give me the key to the irons,” 
Harding called after him, carelessly. 

He went on with the maps till ten minutes of the 
hour, when he left the tent, a pair of revolvers in 
his hand, as well as the holster at his side. He was 
smoking the short-stemmed pipe, sitting on a bowlder 
in the highway, when the tramp, tramp of the pris- 
oner and the escort, Mordaunt leading, brought them 
before him. 

“All right,” he said, looking up, as he knocked 
the ashes out on his seat. “Leave the prisoner here. 
Go back to camp. I’ll return,” he added, in English, 
to his aid, “before midnight.” 

He had remained on the stone; and he sat there 
till the steps of the returning party were lost. He 
looked at the prisoner, his gaze lingering on the 
square cap. 


243 


The Princess Olga 

“Get out in front of me,” he said, in Crevonian, as 
he arose, “and march down the road.” 

Thus they advanced in silence till they turned the 
bend and came on the motor-car. 

“Madame Vaillant,” he said, “I am going to sen- 
tence you to a punishment that ought to make you 
ashamed of yourself, if anything can. I am going to 
make you ride in the front seat of that car, alongside 
of a man — in those clothes! Climb in.” 

He threw the revolvers on the seat which he was 
to occupy, and, taking out the key, unfastened the 
handcuffs, casting them, with a clang, into the 
tonneau. 

“Climb in,” he repeated, joining her a moment 
later. 

His fingers twirled the throttle around the rim of 
the steering-wheel. 

“I am going to tell you something, madame,” he 
said, “that will surprise you.” 

“First,” she answered, defiantly, “what do you 
mean to do with me?” 

“To take you home,” he replied. 

“Home?” she echoed, glancing quickly back where 
the fires of the camp glowed in the sky. “To Weiss- 
burg?” 

“To Weissburg, the castle — ^wherever you please, 
madame,” he returned, with grim declaration, “so 
that you may hide yourself from the sight of men in 
those — clothes!” 

He himself would not look at the hateful things 
nor deign to see if her cheek were flaming in the dark. 

“Madame wonders, perhaps,” he continued, “at a 
motor-car in the train of an army going to war. 
Well, war is largely a matter ')f modern improve- 
ments like existence in a New York flat. Does it 
244 


The Princess Olga 

shock Crevonian romanticism to find an automobile 
poking its nose into a battle-field ? No doubt it were 
more in keeping with antiques were we to be drag- 
ging around suits of armor which would prevent us 
from doing anything but make high-flown speeches 
to Bellona. But our idea — radical but practical — is 
to make war, like every other business proposition, 
on business principles — even to the book-keeping, 
madame, accounting for the commissary stores con- 
sumed and the per capita cost of killing men.” 

He let the car spin along for half a dozen miles 
with nothing said. 

‘‘At any rate,” he resumed, on the same topic, 
and with a sort of heavy relief, as if one were closing 
a scandal in the family, “it is fortunate that the car 
was along so that I could get you back — out of sight.” 

He heard her shift her feet nervously, but he held 
his face away. 

“At least,” he said, with a melancholy satisfac- 
tion, “if we meet anybody on the road it is dark.” 

A heat wave was near him on her cheek, and he 
crowded over to the opposite direction, with a fine 
pretence of shamefaced anxiety. Her little teeth 
clicked. 

“Please don’t cry about it, though,” he admon- 
ished; “it will not do any good.” 

“I was not thinking of crying!” she hissed. “It 
is contemptible, cowardly, to gloat over the misfort- 
unes of a woman!” 

“Misfortunes,” he assented, “and self-inflicted hu- 
miliations.” 

Now the dainty bits of white ivory behind her lips 
ground, as he had seen them do in the castle. 

“What I wantedj to tell you — what I thought 
might surprise you,' he continued — “is that when 

245 


The Princess Olga 

there is anything you wish to know about the army, 
now that it is out in the open, it will not be necessary 
to — dress like that,” he added, diffidently. “When 
you were trying to enlist I told Busche to shut his 
eyes — I mean, not to laugh you off the place. You 
see, if you had sent in your card we should have re- 
ceived you gladly. Any one,” he went on, in the 
old, quiet tone, ‘‘might hfave come in when you did; 
for, of course, no one could go out. It was a good 
place to have those who needed to be kept under 
surveillance.” 

There was no doubt that something caught in her 
throat this time, but he ignored its betrayal of her 
woful mortification at the pitifulness of her struggle 
against the inevitable. 

“You were a great nuisance to Dr. Busche,” he 
said, in tones of reflection. “He had to keep you 
out of the ranks, except for general assembly, away 
from the men — with their talk, their roughness, their 
brutality — so it was necessary to assign you to special 
duty with him in the hospital corps. Of course, you 
could not have quarters with the nurses — the women 
— in those clothes; so he had to make special arrange- 
ments for you near his. And old Busche had to 
drill you. Every soldier in the army,” he declared, 
with grim fervor, “must have his drill; but the poor 
chap already had his hands full, and he had been 
beyond the drill-field for many years. It was hard 
on him; and he was very good to you. I hope,” he 
added, with profound sympathy, “you are sorry for 
poor old Busche!” 

Peering ahead in the darkness, he heard her quick 
breathing at his side. 

“Do you mind telling me,” he asked, with sardonic 
interest, “if you had succeeded in deceiving us, how 
246 


The Princess Olga 

you ever expected to be able to undergo the hard- 
ship — not to speak of the rest — of service in the 
ranks?” 

“I had no idea of staying,” she returned, with 
sullen defiance. “I merely wished to confirm my 
suspicions beyond doubt, then to go away immedi- 
atdy to my own task.” 

He gave a short, dry laugh. 

‘‘Once you were in,” he said, “of course, it would 
be easy to get out.” 

She would not answer him, holding her lips to- 
gether, as he knew. Even with all the consideration 
of Dr. Busche, she had been powerless to desert; she 
had been a helpless atom in the unshakable mass. 

‘‘You have seen what we are,” he ran on, lightly, 
in French, “and how we do our work.” Then in 
English, speaking in low tones under the steady 
throb of the engines, “Are you not convinced?” 

‘‘No!” she cried, in a high, stricken note. ‘‘Right 
is right! No!” she repeated. 

They had come the miles like the wind; and they 
shot past the entrance of his own Concession, his 
men there paying no more attention to his flight 
than if he were on his daily round of administration 
on the Forest Island. There was something awesome 
in the invincible calm of this man, whose inexorable 
will always gave him his way, and she stole a timid 
glance at him ; but he held his afar. 

On they sped, past the very spot where she had 
led him to his betrayal. She shivered, but raised no 
voice to stop him. 

‘‘Into Weissburg, then?” he asked, mechanically. 

But, after a start, she gathered herself. 

‘‘I do not care to go there,” she said, nervously. 
“It will be light in the streets,” she faltered. 

247 


The Princess Olga 

“Back to the castle, then?” he asked, shortly. 

She nodded her head in assent. Circling the car, 
he retraced the road to the little path where he had 
followed her in on that moonlight night. He assisted 
her to the ground, turning his head in his affectation 
of abashed embarrassment. But in the next moment 
he was looking her steadily in the face in the old, old 
way, as she stood there amid the foliage, the lustre 
of her eyes shining to his. 

“Do you want to know,” he said, “what it is I 
most resent of all your caprice and follies — your be- 
trayals and wrongs? The long list need not be re- 
lated. I forgive them all but one. I shall forget all 
others, perhaps; but never this one,” he declared, 
half in anger, half in shame, “that to play your last 
foolish part you cut off your hair!” 

He swung half away from her, then back again. 

“Have you nothing to say?” he asked. “No con- 
trition to offer?” 

She had none, and held her lips tight-pressed. 

“Good-night, then,” he said, climbing into the car. 

He fumbled with a lever. 

“By-the-way” — he broke the silence quietly — “if 
you have any interest in the matter, half an hour 
before you left the army in my care I received word 
that the King of Crevonia was dead.” 

She gave a cry of surprise, of appeal for more in- 
formation, of her wish he would stay, if only for a 
moment longer. But, with a short laugh, he opened 
the throttle wide, shooting his car along the road 
towards the plain where lay encamped his little army. 


CHAPTER XXIII 


H arding came into camp, as he had promised, 
long before midnight. At three o’clock in the 
morning the command was swinging along the Cre- 
vonian road again, covering the miles as he had 
learned to span them in pursuit of swift Indian 
bands on the plains of the West. There is no march- 
ing force in the world to compare with the swoop of 
United States troops inured to chasing and fight- 
ing the red man. But when Harding let his soldiers 
come to a halt at eleven o’clock of the forenoon, 
lying in the shade of trees, drinking in the luxury 
of sloth after tremendous endeavor which has been 
spurred with calm, confident encouragement and an 
inflexible will, he had slipped thirty miles between 
his rear-guard and the post abandoned as the dawn 
streaked the east. 

For four hours he let the men lie flat on their 
backs, horses all tired out to the degree of cringing 
flank and distressed nostril far within the limit of 
human endurance, and, when the sun was well on 
the decline, drove them on again, with that un- 
ruffled demeanor and smilingly expectant eye, until, 
at eight o’clock, they pitched headlong on the turf, 
wondering, as in a dream, at the assurances of their 
non - commissioned officers that the hickory - built 
leader, whose presence was like a rawhide whip, but 
never cutting, had swept them forward until they 
were fifty miles from where they had broken camp 
249 


The Princess Olga, 

and eighty from the Concession. And, though 
horses staggered on, and the motor-car trailed along 
behind, carrying only a private whose foot had been 
crushed by a field-gun, the captain, not many weeks 
from a sick-bed, had marched afoot, every step, at 
the head of the column. 

But if the first day of forced marching had been 
an admiring dream to the Crevonians, there followed 
on its heels a hideous nightmare. Yesterday, at 
three, they had started fresh; this morning, weary 
and sore, they were prodded off their blankets at 
the point of sword and bayonet, to arouse them, at 
two. For ten hours they drove ahead, the sinewy 
form leading; slept under the noonday sun for four, 
and crawled on. Now they were climbing. At this 
toil men straggled or fell down, and their leader had 
the judgment to let them drop behind, smilingly 
promising those who blindly groped forward that 
they were to last with him to the crest. 

Before dark they had topped the foot-hills, the only 
danger he had feared, with not a gun to stay them. 
More. Miracle of action, by secluded paths and 
through unfrequented passages, porters had crept 
after the scouts days before. On the bank of a 
brook, brawling, cool, and foaming down the hill- 
side, to tempt fevered face and swollen, aching limb 
to a fresh, sweet plunge, there was supper awaiting 
them in the camp-kettle. 

Men lay, with their feet in the swift flow of water, 
on the grassy bank, their bodies drunk with sleep; 
but from prostrate form to huddled group, along the 
line, went the captain of them all, having steaming 
coffee poured down shrivelled throats. And through 
the night this invincible spirit stayed on the out- 
posts ; for the army which was to reshape the destiny 
250 


The Princess Olga 

of Crevonia had come over the divide, single barrier 
of dread. And across and up the valley at their 
feet, on the slope of the far-away hills, lay the capital 
of the kingdom claimed by the Princess Olga. 

Now men could sleep to their hearts’ content, save 
for those who must watch the distant approaches 
and guard the stolen prize. They could lave in the 
cold mountain waters like children in holiday pools; 
for the army, secure in what its chief coveted, rested. 
It waited while elasticity revisited strained and stif- 
fened tendons, and eyes sparkled as before to the 
sharp commands that rang on the air. 

Gordon Harding, ambassador of the non-combatant 
powers of bank and bourse, smiled calmly on his 
army, which the astounded garrison across the val- 
ley, all dotted with hamlets, beheld as a thunderbolt, 
its swift drop from the clouds arrested over their 
heads so long as it was the pleasure of the quiet man 
in brown khaki suit who levelled his glasses at them 
from the height. 

Through the days the army hung in its eyry; but 
at first men skulked along the far-reaching crest, 
picks worked swiftly under cover of night, willing 
hands dragged their burdens of long, glittering guns 
over the rocks and gravelled soil, wearing it smooth ; 
then bodies strode more erect and boldly. One day, 
on a test of range, a thin vapor curled where a bat- 
tery had been planted, and later a growling bark fol- 
lowed, echoing over the valley. 

The inhabitants of the capital began to desert 
their homes for the country beyond. Yet the army 
waited. Every day, however, there were new 
shreds of the vapor farther along the crest. The 
population of Borglitch, with its silly mockery of 
gilded domes, which brought the light of disdain to 

251 


The 'Princess Olga 

the smooth features of Harding, always studying 
through his field-glasses, thinned rapidly from fear; 
for no shell had crashed through one of those tinsel 
half -globes, shining under the sun. 

But the army delayed on the plans of its captain, 
master of Crevonia, before he had taken possession 
of its seat of government. 

On the morning of the death of the King the gar- 
rison had declared for the Princess Olga, and Alex- 
ander, attempting to flee, had been captured and 
thrown into prison. The outlying troops confirmed 
the choice. Pending her arrival to mount the 
throne a regency council was empowered to act for 
Olga, the little fat princess of Madame Vaillant’s 
hopes. Then the soldiers and citizens of Borglitch, 
delighted with themselves, took to the wine-shops. 
They were still there when the thunderbolt swooped, 
checking its flight merely to hover. 

Between the Princess Olga, proclaimed Queen of 
Crevonia, and her crown was Harding, with his little 
army. 

In the night, when he was at his extreme outpost, 
planting still a nearer battery to the capital, Mor- 
daunt came to report important information. 

“As you have directed, sir,” he said, “we have 
captured the Princess Olga, seeking to gain Borglitch 
by a side road.” 

“Then,” smiled Harding, “the question is, do we 
want her ? And what the devil shall we do with her ?” 

“I am afraid, sir,” answered the aid, mournfully, 
“it will end the war — and, by gad, sir! there has not 
been a single fight.” 

“ Perhaps it will,” mused Harding. “ But, Tommy, 
if the fuss is all over, maybe we can start for New 
York.” 


252 


The Princess Olga 

“Without a fight?” protested the Crevonian. 

Harding shrugged his shoulders. 

“We came into this business to win, Tommy,” he 
replied, quietly. “If there is no need to die, if we 
win the war without losing our skins — Tommy, you 
are an Englishman all right, and several centuries be- 
hind the times.” 

But he was thoughtful. 

“I must stay out here for another half-hour,” he 
said. “Express my regrets to her Highness that I 
cannot reach her immediately. Place my quarters 
at her disposal. If you don’t mind. Tommy, I will 
bunk in with you. I will come in to present my re- 
spects as soon as I can get away from the battery.” 

In their permanent camp in the mountains, Har- 
ding’s headquarters were not unlike the arrangement 
of those in the Concession. There was a double tent ; 
the foremost, where he transacted the business of the 
army — it was still strictly business — behind a double 
flap, another, smaller, where he slept or held privacy. 

Going to meet the Princess, he was not surprised 
to find in attendance on her Highness the gallant 
and devoted Madame Vaillant. In the outer tent 
she awaited, as was fitting, the princely and all but 
royal pleasure. Her Highness was within, secluded, 
perhaps overwhelmed. 

Harding bowed, surveying Madame Vaillant not 
over -long this time, in her green riding -habit, his 
brow contracting slightly at her cut hair. She had 
removed her hat, leaving it with the Princess in the 
tent at the rear. 

“If her Highness is asleep,” he said, “I will ex- 
press, through you, my desire to make her stay as 
comfortable as a rough camp permits. I will call to 
present myself in the morning.” 

^7 253 


The Princess Olga 

She had tossed her head. 

“Her Majesty — ^the Queen,” she corrected. 

“Not yet,” he answered, quietly, with an apolo- 
getic bow again. She did not dispute him further. 

“Her Highness,” declared Madame Vaillant, dryly, 
“has been resting, not sleeping.” 

He did not offer his regrets for their detention. 

“I am sorry,” he said, “that we have nothing bet- 
ter to offer than this — as you see it.” 

“Her Highness,” she retorted, “is not likely to 
ask many favors of you.” 

“Such as she asks,” he responded, simply, “will 
receive respectful consideration.” 

“The Princess,” she said, loftily, “will see you.” 

The little light of confidence stole into his eyes. 

“When she is ready,” he replied, quietly, “I am at 
her service. While she delays she will pardon me, 
perhaps, if I gather some of my despatches and 
papers which I shall require for work to-night.” 

He bowed, and sat down at the field -desk where 
he had been when he had delivered Madame Vaillant 
to Mordaunt as the mutinous soldier under arrest. 

There was a vast change in his manner from that 
of their previous meetings, and his tone, his glance, 
his air were eloquent of the difference. In the 
castle he had lashed her with a scoffing tongue; as 
the suitor, he had wooed her with the gentle words of 
the lover; he had admonished her patiently as the 
child; reasoned with her as the woman; and always 
hitherto she had been a planet of the first magni- 
tude. Now, in the train of the Princess whom he 
awaited, she was a fallen star. His treatment of her 
declared as much. He had not ignored her; no 
more did Mordaunt ignore Harding’s orderly, in the 
presence of his chief, if passing a command to the 
254 


The Princess Olga 

lesser person. He did not hold her exactly as the 
servant of her royal mistress within; he did cut her 
out of his calculations of the real object of impor- 
tance in the new situation ; and this his bearing frank- 
ly betrayed. 

Only once did he approach his old interest in 
her. Looking at her clipped head, his eye straying 
down to where the dark ringlets clustered above her 
neck, he made to taunt her as in the days of the 
castle, laughing with the affable arrogance. Then he 
bethought himself of the Princess beyond the canvas 
wall. 

“Does her Highness,'* he asked, in a lowered 
voice, “understand and speak English?" 

“As well as I," she flashed, disdainfully. 

He made a little gesture of abandonment of his 
purposed remark, lapsing into his other air of the 
one intent on her superior. 

She could not accept this degradation to the lower 
rank in his concern with good grace. Her lip curled ; 
her dark eyes flashed more than pique — ^the fury of 
the woman scorned. 

“Will monsieur," she snapped, in French, “await 
the pleasure of her Highness ?" 

“As long as her Highness pleases," he replied, over 
his papers. 

“She will see monsieur," she said for the second 
time, now with condescension. 

“Thank you, madame," he responded, running a 
pencil through an order. 

“Monsieur is good to wait so long," she gave back; 
and her tone was nothing short of vicious. 

“I can wait; there is much work for me. I can 
do it here — if it does not disturb her Highness." 

Now he buried himself in some despatches, and 
255 


The Princess Olga. 

three biting quips from her tongue flew wide of their 
aim; but, stooping to pick up a memorandum which 
had fallen to the ground, once more he heard her. 

“It gives monsieur great pleasure to repay us in 
our coin with interest?’' 

He looked gravely, not at her, at the flap before 
the privacy of the Princess Olga. 

“I think,” he said, slowly, “it always is unpleas- 
ant to me to hurt the feelings of any one. But there 
is the work to one’s hand.” 

“Monsieur,” she challenged, with vixenish force, 
“does not say ‘duty’; he calls it ‘work.’” 

“It is work, madame,” he answered, absently. 

“Not duty!” she flaunted. 

He did not catch her; he was tearing up papers, 
stuffing them into the pocket of his blouse. 

He got up and went to the front, where stood his 
orderly. 

“Monsieur is impatient?” she asked, with a sort of 
desperate jeer. 

But he was giving an order to see if Colonel Mor- 
daunt had a report from one they were expecting. 

“Monsieur, then, receives -other visitors this even- 
ing?” she demanded, impertinently. 

“ What — oh yes ; excuse me, yes,” he said, vacantly. 

He resumed the work, and was at it when the or- 
derly came back almost instantly. 

“Colonel Mordaunt commands me to say no report 
has come of — ” 

“Silence!” commanded Harding, sharply. 

“Receiving some one?” she repeated, scoffingly. 

“Yes,” he assented; “some one of importance.” 

“Of importance?” echoed her mimicking note. 

He turned slowly, looking afar off, as if not en- 
tirely mindful of what his tongue was doing. 

256 


The Princess Olga, 

“Why, yes,” he murmured — “the next King of 
Crevonia.” 

He could not mistake that little choking cry in 
the throat behind him, but the interruption had 
caused him to mislay a sheet, and he sought it. Her 
quick breathing was close at his head; he could not 
find the missing paper. He was conscious that angry 
lips were at his ear; he continued his search. 

“Coward!” she breathed, in illogical fury, “to 
strike a woman behind your back!” 

He laughed outright, turning; and, at the picture 
she made there, a slow, contented smile stole over 
his face, for she was in a new, daring spirit. She 
had not believed him; she thought that, trying to 
goad her in the old way, he had invented this fiction, 
though it was the truth. Her eyes danced with a 
sparkle both arch and roguish; her toss of clipped 
head was gayly defiant. She seemed a witch of 
loveliness then, luring him further to tempt her out- 
bursts, secure in the protection of her mistress back 
of the flap. 

Again he gave a clear, natural laugh, at once hush- 
ing it, with a glance towards the tent where was the 
Princess Olga, lest his disregard of her misfortune 
give her offence. 

“Madame’s inverted simile,” he said, in a low 
voice, “somewhat broke the force of the blow.” 

But, with her hands behind her back, her small 
face still luringly thrust forward, her slim form sway- 
ing, her lips aflush, she taunted him afresh with her 
elusive gesture rather than with unnecessary words. 

A flash of bravado shot from beneath his brows, 
and he arose with a threatening gesture of delibera- 
tion, as if he would kiss this pretty, mocking face 
with no more scruple than one of her countrymen 

257 


The Princess Olga 

would a serving-lass. The purpose was on his face, 
in the carriage of his shoulders; and, seeing that as- 
pect of him, suddenly she cast her glance towards 
the retreat of the Princess. 

He made a motion of indifference, and hastily, 
with a fluttering of the dark lashes, she took a step 
not from but towards him, her mien and movement 
instinct with caution. 

“Her Highness is to come forth now,” she said, in 
a voice sunk that it might not carry beyond the 
rear canvas. 

Her eyes lighted again, something in them like 
glinting particles in a sunbeam. 

“Before I conduct her out, there is one thing I 
would say — for henceforth,” she added, with the airy 
scoffing, and it was almost a whisper, that the 
Princess might not hear, “I shall be withdrawn be- 
hind the greater splendor of her Highness. As she is 
my shield, so she will eclipse my little light. Madame 
Vaillant,” she murmured, “disappears from your 
horizon; for, though she still remains, your vision, as 
is right, takes in the higher figure.” 

He waited for the Princess Olga to come to her 
side. 

“Before I go into the background, neglected, over- 
looked,” she said, in the low, murmuring notes, “I, 
in turn, have one thing to ask — one bit of informa- 
tion to beg.” 

His negligent glance was on the flap, expectant; 
but he inclined his head in assent to Madame Vail- 
lant ’s request, if it could be granted in reason. 

“Will you tell me,” she asked, “as the final word 
to a woman soon to be removed from your path, why 
— what it was — why” — she faltered — “you de- 
stroyed those letters?” 


258 


The Princess Olga 

He turned his gaze, letting it rest on her gravely. 

“When I discovered,” he answered, quietly, “that 
I was in the hands of the agents of the Princess Olga, 
I did not know how far they might persist in their 
folly. They did not — so far as I am aware they 
made no effort to — search my papers. I had no way 
of knowing, however, that they would not. In my 
pocket were letters, one of which contained a phrase 
which might have seemed to Madame’s friends to 
reflect somewhat upon the quality of her service 
to them. I thought, perhaps, madame’s employers 
would not see the letter to her advantage. When 
she went from the room that first night to fetch 
Madame Krag, I tore them into bits, unobserved, as 
I hoped, and burned them in the open fire there. 
And they were very dear to me — at that time,” he 
added, calmly. 

Her lips half opened to give a little cry in recog- 
nition of his simple explanation; but she repressed it, 
evidently in fear of the Princess. Nevertheless, for 
the moment she stood with her head down, the 
scarlet lines of her mouth a-tremble, her little fingers 
working in a nervous clasp; for in some way she 
must acknowledge the act of this man, invincibly 
sure, even in his own ordeal, to spare embarrassment 
to the woman to whom he had offered his vows — and 
that though then he held her not unblemished. 

She lifted the lids, gazing at him for a brief space, 
with a new lustre there, soft and shy, as if she had 
forgotten her little Princess and her own part in the 
drama. 

“I will go to ask her Highness if she will see you,” 
she whispered ; and she went behind. 

The Princess Olga did not come immediately. If 
she were taking more time with Madame Vaillant to 

259 


The Princess Olga, 

still her indignation or to fortify her courage, the 
minutes passed. 

Harding was to remove his papers, which he had 
not quite arranged. He bent over the desk, gather- 
ing them, so that they might be ready for his de- 
parture. He was putting them in a single pile, when 
he heard the rasp of the canvas flap, with the rustle 
of skirts, and he turned. 

Even then Madame Vaillant came first to lead the 
way, standing for a moment in the opening, and his 
eye took in her appearance with an approving glance. 
He saw that she had replaced her hat, and, wonder 
of wonders ! in this age of unlovely headwear for the 
saddle, she wore a spreading cover, as of an ancient 
painting in the days of chivalry; and he could not 
but smile that it had a sweeping plume, falling over 
her collar behind, to conceal the loss of her tresses. In 
the snug, green habit her slender form, as he studied 
her under the lantern swinging from its hook, showed 
more round; and there were other deft touches — he 
could not tell what — which had heightened the effect 
she wished to produce on her spectator. 

He showed his appreciation of this view of her, 
and in that instant, satisfied with the expression of 
his countenance, she stepped forward, triumph shin- 
ing from her very presence that, at least in this one 
contest, she had vanquished him, and yet ridicule 
that he had not seen till now all the charms which, 
his frank eyes confessed, graced her. She opened her 
lips, red like fruit, to announce her mistress, with a scoff 
for his enthralment ; but he cut in with calm, cold words. 

“Your Highness," he said, directly, to Madame 
Vaillant, with a low, formal, official bow, “I may 
only repeat what I have before told you — that I re- 
gret we have nothing better to offer you." 

260 


CHAPTER XXIV 


E ven now, in anticipating her revelation of her 
true self, Harding had stolen her last chance of 
a solitary victory. Yet in her new, her rightful r61e 
of Olga, Princess of Crevonia, she displayed no petty 
resentment, though she surveyed him with distance. 
She did not thrust the haughtiness of rank or pride 
between her needs and this imperturbable man, who 
held her fate in the hollow of his palm. 

“Monsieur,” she said, with a sad dignity, “I have 
walked too many paths strewn with bitterness by 
your hand for me to pretend that I rise here superior 
to my stress.” 

He did not take up the challenge, begging her to 
be seated while she gave him her audience. 

“If your Highness,” he said, “will make your 
wishes known, so far as I — ” But her gesture pro- 
tested against explanation. 

“Princess in exile or queen deprived of her throne 
by force,” she continued, sorrow rather than indig- 
nation in her voice, “the woman does not cease to be 
the woman.” 

Indeed, she knew the power of the r61e of simple 
woman with the man who ignored divine rights and 
the lines of royal caste; for she played upon the 
strings of his nature, now boldly, now shyly — in the 
one breath impassioned, in the next running from 
princess to woman, even girl, in swift succession, to 
accentuate her weakness, the helplessness under his 
261 


The Princess Olga 

hand of mail or his unyielding will. Nor did she fail 
to employ the weapon that comes readily to the 
feminine touch — an open, almost desperate appeal to 
the love which he had declared for Madame Vaillant 
— and with pretty guile and quite unscrupulous 
coquetry. 

“Monsieur, monsieur,” she ran on, her eyes bright 
like a child’s who has been playing hide-and-seek to 
elude one who has searched for her, “confess that, 
though you forestalled my announcement to you, 
you had no inkling of the truth till I stood there,” 
and she pointed to the flap with an eager, piquant 
turn of her slim form. “Was monsieur not sur- 
prised? Had he not been completely misled?” 

“He may have his dreams,” Harding responded, 
gravely, neither agreeing nor denying, “from which 
he is not willing to awaken. Though he might not 
seek an unwelcome truth,” he added, in a low voice, 
“he does not blind his eyes to its consequences, your 
Highness, once it is revealed.” 

“If he had known who Madame Vaillant really 
was,” she asked, breathlessly, “would he have so de- 
liberately planned her ruin?” 

“Your Highness,” he replied, “Madame Vaillant 
never existed. If there were, in fact, no such person, 
then there could have been no such other circum- 
stances as might have related to her.” 

She peered into his eyes doubtfully, not sounding 
all his meaning, and ran her little hand over her 
temple, where the ringlets were clustering. 

“None at all ?” she asked, half disputing, half anx- 
ious. 

“Only the dream,” he assented. 

“ But if, in the beginning, you had known ?” she de- 
manded, in English, with a certain, tense expectancy. 

262 


The Princess Olga 

He turned his eyes to hers, holding them in the 
over-long scrutiny. They were steady, composed. 

“There would have been no dream,” he answered. 

She broke into a sort of childish denial. 

“ Monsieur,” she cried, in pique, “despises a princess 
where he could love a woman?” 

She blushed at her temerity ; but she did not flinch 
from the level gaze. 

“He realizes the vast difference between those, 
men or women,” he said, soberly, “who are the 
creations of institutions beyond their influence and 
one whose life is for work — at his own selection and 
under his control.” 

“At least,” she cried, “his hand would not have 
struck the blow at her!” 

“That much difference,” he answered, thought- 
fully, “it might have made; I could not be sure.” 

That he could love a woman — the same woman — 
in one dress and not in another — she flung a little 
defiance at him with her plumed head. 

“Possibly,” he added, in reflection, “there would 
have been no interference by him, for the reason that, 
knowing the truth in the beginning, he would not 
have come. Her Highness will pardon the reminder 
that her present enemy had no thought of accept- 
ing his mission until he saw in New York one 
whom he supposed to exist but who did not. Had 
he known — ” 

“He would not have cared?” she exclaimed. 

He bowed a grave agreement. 

“He would not have undertaken what he is now 
doing?” she ran on, quickly. “Then,” she flung at 
him, sharply, “the Princess Olga would now be Queen 
of Crevonia,on the throne; for Alexander is in prison 
in my capital. But for you the way is clear.” 

263 


The Princess Olga, 

He shook his head with patient admonition. 

“There would have been another,” he said. “I 
am but an incident to the cause ; the effect was fore- 
doomed.” 

“The doom is in suspense,” she demanded, “merely 
till you choose to release Alexander and place him on 
my throne?” 

“I shall release him,” he said, simply. 

“What if my cousin should die in prison?” she 
cried, a fierce light of defiance flashing from her dark 
eyes. “What then?” she asked, a ring of barbarian 
ancestry sounding her triumph. 

He shrugged his shoulders. 

“It would make no difference,” he said. “As a 
matter of fact,” he added, “Alexander is not to have 
the throne.” 

“Alexander not — !” she gasped, going near him 
and scanning his face with preposterous hope, yet 
with nervous dread. 

“I think,” he continued, in a natural voice, “I 
mentioned to you this evening that I was expecting 
a call from the King of Crevonia. Alexander is in 
prison.” 

She stepped back, frightened. 

“I do not admire your cruelty,” she faltered. 

“Your Highness,” he said, respectfully but firmly, 
“if it distresses you to have him here with you, your 
presence in Crevonia is not my doing. If you resent 
his arrival at this particular moment, my business 
must go on its course as natural arrangement and 
disposal require. I have had no thought of causing 
you needless pain ; yet the business of the hour must 
proceed.” 

“I did not mean that,” she declared, between the 
little white teeth — “I did not mean that. But you 
264 


The Princess Olga. 

have not told me” — she shrank back — “what it is 
you would do — who, if it is not Alexander, is to take 
my throne — from the hands of your soldiers,” she 
added, with cold pride. 

“It is the design of those who have arranged the 
matter,” he responded, “that the crown should go to 
Prince — ” 

“Not George!” she exclaimed, wrathfully. 

” His Highness Prince Nicholas. I have never seen 
him.” 

“Nicholas!” she breathed, thunderstruck. 

He bowed. 

“Why,” she whispered, in horror, “he is no better 
than a clerk! Since that branch was exiled and 
went to live in Berlin, its men have been in trade! 
This poor creature,” she hissed, “is in a bank. 
Nicholas, King of Crevonia!” she choked. “A clerk!” 

“Your Highness,” he answered, “about that I 
know nothing. As I have told you, I am to see him 
for the first time to-night. I have been expecting 
him all evening. Who he is or what he has been,” 
he added, with the old subtle smile, the first he had 
given the Princess Olga, “does not concern me, as it 
undoubtedly does the bankers,” he ended, with a 
delicate, rising accent on the word to reflect her 
opinion of the class. 

“Nicholas, King of Crevonia!” she repeated. 

“You see,” he said, gently, “how the forces dis- 
pose.” 

She went away from him, standing with her back 
to him for what seemed a long time. Unconsciously 
he turned and began to gather the papers on the 
little field-desk. He was at them when she walked 
to him, very pale, the traces of the emotion which 
she had hidden from him still strong on her face. 

265 


The Princess Olga 

"‘Then,” she said, in a low, hard tone, “if Crevonia 
is at this pass, if our family is to sit on a book-keeper’s 
stool for a throne, and if the sceptre of the kingdom 
is to be a quill, then let me complete the disgrace! 
You are the master of it all. You pay tributes to 
the power of the bankers; you would have me be- 
lieve that you hush your voice when you mention 
them, and all the while you sneer at them — at their 
natures no less than at their morals. You know 
they are cattle — no less,’’ she declared, “than the 
poor Crevonians in their fields. What you say, they 
will do ; what you command, they will obey ; because,” 
she whispered, “they are afraid of strong men — they 
crawl while they buy you.” 

Her face was fury, her tongue like scorpions. 

“Well, then,” she ran on, now in smothered rage, 
“make him marry me. I will keep his shop for him 
while he writes the accounts. I will — ” 

But she hushed; for she was looking into blaz- 
ing eyes, and Harding’s face was as white as a 
sheet. 

“Ah!” she cried, in malignant triumph, “you con- 
fess the disgrace! You have forgotten Madame Vail- 
lant! But when the Princess Olga offers this further 
shame, it is you who are taken with the horror of it! 
And listen,” she continued, gasping her shameless- 
ness — “I ask this, I demand it of you, and at the 
same time I tell you something to prove to what 
degradation we can sink the house.” 

She took an impassioned turn the length of the 
tent, standing where she had first appeared to him 
as the Princess Olga, beautiful then in her poor wom- 
an’s triumph of the moment, marvellous now in her 
wrath of outraged royalty. 

“I wrote you a letter, and watched you take it in 
266 


The Princess Olga 

Paris,” she said, in the excited voice. “I told you I 
had been married, as I had been. I informed you, 
so you should know what you had asked me was im- 
possible. Now you know why. Afterwards I told you 
Monsieur Vaillant was dead. ‘Vaillant’ is the word 
of his crest merely; I took that name for disguise. 
Well, he was dead — my own cousin. I was married 
to him after the custom of our country; it was when 
I was ten years old. I went away from the altar to 
the convent. I never saw him again. He died in 
the next twelvemonth. I married him; I have never 
been a wife. Now,” she cried, with as fierce an ac- 
cusation against Harding as against Nicholas and 
the bankers, “knowing what you do, gjve me to be 
the wife of this clerk whom your hand is to set on 
my throne — mine, mine,” she repeated. “I demand 
it,” she cried, jeeringly, “of the man who loved 
Madame Vaillant — ^who loves her still.” 

She glared at him with a lofty scorn, holding her 
head with haughty defiance. But only for a mo- 
ment ; for at what she had poured out in her burning 
words he came slowly towards her, his anger no less 
than hers, only cold, steady, numbing to her senses. 
He walked close to her, holding his eye on hers, and 
it flamed with a fire that was white hot, like his face. 
He raised his hand, and it was clinched as if to make 
a solemn, awful vow before Heaven. Then he drew 
a long breath. His arm sank slowly. He took a 
step backward, his composure fully recovered. 

“I will consider what your Highness has demand- 
ed,” he said. 

She looked at him, astounded by the change — the 
swift, inexpressible change from passion bursting all 
bonds to that enforced calm, gripped in an iron will. 
Her lip quivered. She glanced away, the long, dark 
267 


The Princess Olga 

lashes fluttering timidly. Then she backed suddenly 
into the other tent-room. As the flap fell behind 
her he heard her give a sob in a lingering choke. 

For the while he stood with his jaw hard set. 

“Your Highness,” he called, in a low tone, with 
yet a vibrant break. 

She did not answer. He stood doubtful only for 
the briefest space, then moved towards the field-desk 
with its papers. 

Outside came running feet, with the clank of a 
scabbard on a man’s hurrying hip. Mordaunt’s pale 
face showed at the entrance. 

“Sir!” he gasped. 

“Colonel Mordaunt,” replied his chief, calmly. 

“The Prince — ” stammered the aid. 

“He has come?” asked Harding. 

“Prince Nicholas,” mumbled the Crevonian. 

Both heard a smothered exclamation at their side, 
and Olga was peering into the face, first of the one 
and then of the other. 

“Her Highness, the Princess Olga,” said Harding, 
bowing — “Colonel Mordaunt.” 

His lieutenant, making an obeisance, glanced 
meaningly to convey, in addition to the warning of 
his agitated countenance, that his message was of 
the utmost urgency and import, for the ear only of 
the commander. 

“You may speak; her Highness will pardon you,” 
directed Harding, quietly. 

Still Mordaunt hesitated, radiating anguish. 

“Your report,” commanded the chief. 

“The Prince — ” stammered the other again. 

“Speak out, man!” commanded Harding, sternly. 

“Nicholas is dead! — out on the Crevonian road!” 
whispered Mordaunt, hoarsely. 

268 


The Princess Olga 

Harding scanned him with the long scrutiny, his 
lean features composed but hard. 

“Have the body brought in,” he said, in a tone 
he seemed to steady against fate, “with military 
honors.” 

He turned to the Princess Olga with a restrained, 
puzzled smile lying at the corners of his mouth. 

“The banks propose — ” he said, in a very low tone. 
He made a gesture to his aid to carry his command. 

She had witnessed the scene and heard the dis- 
closure in awed silence. Her attitude did not 
change. 

“I have a favor to ask of you,” he went on, as 
if their relations were friendly, even confidential. 
“Our plans were not known; they were not to be 
divulged until I had advised with his Highness here 
on the ground. I shall be obliged to you if you will 
say nothing of what I have confided to you.” 

“Our army,” she answered, absently, “raised the 
standard for me the first morning.” 

The fine smile crept into his eyes, and she shrank 
away from them. This man was so invincibly un- 
ruffled by even the intervention of Providence — he 
was so derisive of what opposed him, though the 
hand of Death denied him his will! 

But he read her meaning with no desire to con- 
firm it. 

“I was thinking,” he said, gently, almost with the 
patience for the child, “how you speak of raising the 
standard — something done these hundreds of years 
back to express a real will or a vital force. We have 
raised no standard,” he added, in the even note; 
“probably at the last we shall not. We shall simply 
go about the fulfilment of our work as any other, 
carefully thought out, intelligently — beyond doubt, 

i8 269 


The Princess Olga 

successiully-=-executed. If I could only make you see 
the difference,” he said, apparently unmindful of the 
fact that he was addressing, not the wilful, misguided 
Madame Vaillant, but the Princess Olga, claimant of 
the throne. 

“You have taught me so much,” she said, in low, 
quick words. “So many paths where you could not 
yourself lead you have pointed out to me — like the 
child.” 

“Like the child,” he echoed, vaguely. 

“If you would do more — if you would,” she re- 
peated, appealing as the woman, as the girl — “if you 
would do for me what you would have done for 
Nicholas!” 

In the way of the child she took the strong fingers, 
pouring the pathetic light of her dark eyes up to his. 

“They have planned that your hand should raise 
Nicholas,” she murmured. “He is dead. If you 
would have them plan that it should be Olga — if you 
would — ” 

He was looking into the future as into a far dis- 
tance, with a gaze half doubtful, half absent; his fin- 
gers were still clasped in hers, appealing. 

“Surely,” she breathed in his ear, “you know 
enough of Madame Vaillant to believe that she 
could rule more wisely, and to the greater happiness 
of her people, than a tipsy Alexander or a spend- 
thrift George. And of the other say nothing, since 
he is gone.” 

Now he shook his head with a gesture of dissent. 

“Do you doubt her purpose?” she asked in his ear. 

“Not her purpose,” he said. 

“Her capacity?” she asked, anxiously. 

“Not more than that of the others,” he answered, 
grimly; “that is not the question.” 

270 


The Princess Olga 

“They have bound you to some one else?“ 

His shoulders lifted. 

“They have not,” he replied. “To tell you the 
truth, in the event of such a mishap as has fallen to 
our plans, or of any other advisable departure from 
the arranged programme, they have left the settle- 
ment of the affair to my judgment.” 

“You could decide now — you singly — you?” she 
faltered. 

“As the case now stands.” 

She left him, her hands clasped in an intensity of 
concern, her bosom rising quickly, color running in 
her cheeks from hope, out from fear. She took sev- 
eral paces, and went to the little field-desk, seating 
herself there and burying her face in his papers. 

“I cannot bear the strain of it!” she sobbed, with 
the old catch in her throat. 

“I cannot see,” he answered, gently, “that it is for 
me to relieve it — in the manner you wish.” 

She held up her face, haggard now and pinched 
from her stress. 

“If I could make my mind comprehend,”, she de- 
clared, in a hollow wonder, “how you can take from 
me what is mine, when it is in your hand to give me — 
If you had not come, it would have been in my hand ; 
if it had not been for a foolish act, it would have 
been — it is no shame to confess it, when I plead 
with you here for my right.” 

“You mean that you saved my life there by the 
river?” he smiled, quietly. 

“No, no; it was never a question of that.” 

“What, then?” he asked, gravely. 

“Am I to tell ?” she asked, half shyly, half proudly. 

“I wish you would,” he urged, in a low voice. 

“That when you were lying so low in the Conces- 
271 


The Princess Olga 

sion the army was for having the King abdicate, 
then declaring for me. There would have been 
nothing at that time to stay my crowning. Being 
on the throne, the powers and the banks would not 
have gone to the extreme of dragging me from it, 
where I sat peacefully — not with you lying helpless 
in the Concession.” 

“And you would not take advantage of my ill- 
ness ?” 

“I could not.” 

“Why?” 

“It was a penance for my betrayal of you — lor my 
foolish act, which was the cause of your lying there.” 

“There was no other reason?” 

“It was that — the betrayal of a man’s faith, the 
penance.” 

“Nothing more?” 

“There could have been no other motive so com- 
pelling.” 

He glanced over the tent with the expression of 
routine supervision of things familiar. 

“ I shall need to go to see what is being done about 
the unfortunate Nicholas,” he said. 

He took up the papers, this time to carry them off. 

But she could not let him go in such indifference 
to her plea, with so cold a disregard for both right 
and sentiment. 

“Will you not give it to me?” she besought, with 
a poignant cry, holding out her palms as if for alms. 

“As I look at it now,” he answered, calmly, “I 
cannot see how I should or could.” 

She threw out her arms in despair. 

“ Oh, will you not try, will you not try ?” she begged, 
as those do who cling to a forlorn desire, hoping 
against hope. 


272 


The Princess Olga 

“ Most assuredly I will consider all your claims and 
merits,” he answered, in the impartial tone of the un- 
moved judge. “It is only fair to you, however, to 
say that I think such a result of the deliberations as 
you would have is far from probable.” 

Her chin sank in dejection. 

“I came to say,” he declared, finally, “let me say 
it now, that you are under no restraint to stay here. 
Remain as long as you will; you are free to go when 
you please.” 

“Free? Go?” she murmured. 

“Whenever you choose — to-morrow, to-night, if 
you desire.” 

“As I please?” 

“Entirely so.” 

“To Borglitch?” 

“Anywhere. Colonel Mordaunt will take your 
commands.” 

He was assigning her to the hands of some one 
else. She looked at him, drawing up the slight form 
slowly. 

“Thank you,” she said, coldly. 

At daylight he was along his outposts. He was 
still there several hours later, when the Princess Olga, 
escorted under a white flag, rode across the valley 
towards the capital of Crevonia. 


CHAPTER XXV 


L ed into the camp at night, leaving it in the morn- 
^ing, she could not tell the changes which had 
occurred between the setting and the rising of the 
sun. But long before she had descended beyond 
the permanent intrenchments of the position, which 
Harding had held since their first swoop, his forces 
had been bestowing themselves among the high 
barley far out in front of the base of the range 
crested with the batteries. Down there, covered by 
the guns above, they lay safe. 

As Harding prepared to follow the soldiers down 
the slope and into the shelter where they were con- 
cealed from view, he remarked to Mordaunt that a 
wise commander would remain with the batteries, 
directing their fire. 

“By gad, sir!” declared the aid, “it is natural, 
though, to want to be where the fighting is.” 

“Do you want to be there. Tommy?” asked Har- 
ding, with the quiet smile. 

The Crevonian looked at him reproachfully. 

“You would not send me back to the artillery, 
sir?” he asked, anxiously. 

“Well,” laughed Harding, “that is where the fight 
will be made and won, if there is any. It is the bat- 
teries which will win the battle, if we have to give 
them one. When the troops rush in to storm the 
town the contest will be virtually ended.” 

274 


The Princess Olga 


“Then what are we out here for?” asked Mordaunt, 
with a complete lapse of military attitude. 

“To take the town after it is ours,” smiled Har- 
ding, “and then to police it.” 

With a crestfallen countenance Mordaunt rode off 
to deliver commands. 

At ten o’clock in the morning, with the sun straight 
in the faces of the Crevonian garrison, the army 
down in the valley slipped out from the grasses and 
took the open plain, which was the exterior ap- 
proach to the capital. Ploying into column, the lines 
were on a dog-trot; up above and behind them the 
batteries were barking hoarsely. 

Repeatedly Harding rode off to the side, peering 
through his field-glasses, then galloping back to the 
head of his troops. Each time he saw that the little 
escort which his command had furnished to the 
Princess Olga was not yet within the city. Then his 
troopers left her. 

Across the flat plain the road began a gentle ascent 
towards a ravine, up which ran the immediate road 
to the fortifications of Borglitch. Towards this the 
army headed. No one came out to meet the attack. 

Trotting around the column — they were still march- 
ing in that way — Harding called the attention of Mor- 
daunt to smoke rising within the city. 

“The range is working accurately now,” he said, 
quietly. “The shells will soon be fine-tooth-combing 
Borglitch.” 

Still the column advanced towards the mouth of 
the ravine. 

“The Princess Olga,” he said, “has turned back. 
Evidently there is general flight from the place. 
Soon the garrison will take its leave. I am afraid. 
Tommy, there will be no more serious fighting for 

275 


The Princess Olga 

you to-day than to post the night-watch in Borg- 
litch.” 

Then he uttered a cry of cold displeasure, for his 
glasses showed the Princess Olga retracing her jour- 
ney in the direction of his advancing troops. She 
was off to the left, however, just as his force was 
bending to the right. 

He gave a command to Mordaunt, and rode rap- 
idly towards her Highness in the distance. The col- 
umn broke into open formation, marching fast at 
the new angle; but he did not look back to see how 
his orders were being executed. He held his gaze on 
the approaching horsewoman. Then he began to 
gallop hard, signalling to her with his gauntleted 
hand; but she rode on. With repeated gestures he 
warned her back, spurring to come up with her. At 
last she halted her mount, eying him coldly as he 
drew rein at her side. 

“Your Highness,” he said, in a low anger that was 
yet under control, “should have stopped when I 
commanded you.” 

She flushed, her eyes flashing a little spark, but she 
did not deign to answer his reproof in words. 

For a moment he scanned the rising color of her 
cheek, the indignant light behind the dark lashes. 

“Her Highness,” he said, with a sort of cutting 
contempt, “came near to making more trouble than 
her unwarranted interference with affairs for which 
she has no calling has before caused.” 

He was angry; he did not mince his words; he 
made no pretence of formal recognition of her titular 
position. 

“I have tried to be very patient,” he went on, a 
leaden tinge of sternness on his visage. “There is a 
limit beyond which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. 

276 


The Princess Olga 

Just now you have all but done something very ter- 
rible. Something — He did not complete the 
charge. “I will thank you to have done with this 
sort of thing. You must take yourself out of the 
scope of this situation. I am making no request of 
you now, your Highness. These are my orders ; they 
are to be obeyed.” 

The glance which she returned him was sullen, as 
in the days of the castle. 

“My orders,” he repeated. “Do you under- 
stand?” 

Her indignation burst forth, her eye scathing, her 
tone bitter. 

“ I was stopping something terrible,” she said. “ I 
came to warn you — ^to save you — and you berate me 
as if I were a servant!” 

She turned to ride away in unappeasable unfor- 
giveness, but wheeled. 

“I came to warn you,” she cried, angrily, tear- 
fully, timidly, “that you were marching straight on 
a mine!” 

With his whole arm he made an utterly hopeless 
gesture. But she was aroused to her fiercest bent of 
resistance. 

“You may rob me of my throne,” she said, with a 
vehemence of accusation; “you shall not break my 
spirit!” 

“Madame, madame,” he returned, in despair, for- 
getting whom he addressed. 

At his words the anger in her little face died, 
though she sat there proudly. 

“Can you tell me,” he asked, with a slow, serious 
smile, “where they are — the mines?” 

She shook her plumes. 

“I only know,” she replied, “that there are two — 
277 


The Princess Olga 

one farther back, one out before the ravine, directly 
in the path of your march. Had you not halted 
your force it would have destroyed them.” 

‘‘Madame, madame,” he repeated, with patient 
resignation. 

Then he swung in his saddle, pointing with his 
gauntleted finger to the army, on which her glance 
had not fallen since he had come out to meet her. 
Since then it had broken almost at right angles into 
the new formation, carrying far to the right of the 
ravine. Opening out, though the artillery fire 
which played across the valley screened its front 
from attack, it had begun the ascent of the ridge. 
As she looked the last of the files were scrambling 
up. 

“The mines,” he said, deliberately, “are located, 
one at the second turn in the ravine, just after you 
pass the oak-tree by the road; the other — ” He 
paused, studying her with thoughtful concern. “Ad- 
vancing to us, you would have ridden over it. To 
prevent you, I was compelled to cross it.” 

She leaned back in her saddle as if to escape his 
sober scrutiny. He sat so still, his face so collected, 
that she made as if to cry out to break the strain of 
the silence. But he checked her with a little com- 
mand of his eye. 

“You had no right,” he said, gravely, “to suppose 
that I would not know where were the mines of your 
foolish Crevonians, perhaps better than most of 
them. If I did not, you had no right to suppose 
that the rawest soldier who had ever read elementary 
tactics would be so mad as to assault fortifications 
up a ravine. Your Crevonians might have imagined 
I would commit so stupendous a folly; certainly 
there was no warrant for you to think so.” 

278 


The Princess Olga 

He smiled, now with a gentle melancholy, at her 
head bowed despondently over her reins. 

“You had no right,” he went on, “to commit an 
act which forced me to cross where I did at a time 
when the preservation of my life is of greater im- 
portance to your people than it could ever possibly 
be to me or to those with whom I am engaged; for 
your judgment should have warned you that, with 
my control gone from these soldiers — remember they, 
too, are Crevonians — they might, undoubtedly would, 
have sacked the city. When you had seen the 
havoc, your Highness, which your heedlessness had 
caused — the burned houses, pillaged stores, murdered 
citizens, despoiled womanhood— you would have bit- 
terly lamented the thoughtless impulse which drove 
you to cause the destruction of the commander while 
leaving his troops unharmed, victorious — and brutally 
revengeful!” 

Her face had gone lower and lower; but he could 
see that, after her first furious flush of mortification, 
all its color had run out. 

“God knows,” he continued, with the grave smile, 
“I have no wish to force my advice on you further. 
If ever there seemed reason for such, the time is past. 
Whatever there was between Madame Vaillant and 
a plain man of work, there is nothing between him 
and the Princess Olga. I could remind your High- 
ness that you may persist in your useless undertak- 
ing to further mischief and perhaps disaster. You 
may defend those trifling fortifications till needless 
blood is shed. You may cause the death of a few of 
my men, possibly; of many of yours; but nothing 
that your Highness can do will change the result. 
Those men whom you have just seen scaling the 
ridge will enter the town its masters. Not this after- 
279 


The Princess Olga, 

noon — it may be, not to-morrow. Such is not their 
work now. They will lie where they are till the 
batteries have silenced every gun, big or little, in 
Borglitch. They will lie there secure under cover of 
our artillery fire till this is done. Before night they 
will have dug their trenches and completed their 
bomb-proof shelter, so that when the sun is gone 
your people cannot disturb them. I could remind 
your Highness of more than this.” 

He waved the gauntlet up towards the ridge. 

“But I shall go up there, your Highness, where I 
belong,” he said, quietly. “There must be some 
place which you can fill more fittingly than making 
war and founding dynasties. If there were any rea- 
son for me to advise the Princess Olga, as there once 
was Madame Vaillant, I should say your duty was 
to go there.” 

She tried to raise her eyes, and the lashes came 
down quickly again. But, with that courage which 
she had revealed to him more than once, she made 
another effort, meeting his gaze and holding it for a 
moment, though her bridle hand shook among the 
reins. Suddenly she turned her horse, sending it 
towards the city. 

Harding sat motionless, his eyes following her with 
the same grave light until she was lost in the turns 
of the ravine. Then he followed where his men had 
mounted the ridge; but he rode in a wide circle to 
avoid the path over which he had galloped to meet 
and halt the Princess Olga. 

Half an hour after he rejoined his troops there ran 
up the halyards of the high flag-staff of the central 
fort and broke out into the soft breeze a white flag. 

A volley of oaths from the lips of Mordaunt greeted 
the signal of surrender. 


280 


The Princess Olga, 

“By gad, sir!” he cried, in disgust, “the war is 
ended, and there has been no fight.” 

“There is plenty of work, though. Tommy,” an- 
swered Harding, smiling, “and it has just begun.” 

He had no false pride in this matter of performing 
his work with despatch, and he prepared to go for- 
ward himself to receive the evacuation. His aid pro- 
tested with vigor. 

“I know these people better than you do, sir,” he 
urged. “Nine out of ten of them are not above 
putting a knife through you when they get you 
within their own lines. Let them come out to us.” 

At the time Harding was looking through his 
glasses towards a low rampart where showed the 
plumed hat of the Princess Olga. 

“I don’t think there will be anything like that,” 
he answered. “You can come along with me if you 
want to take care of me, Tommy.” 

Nor was there difficulty or accident. At the steps 
of the arsenal the American bowed to her Highness, 
received the sword of the stolid Crevonian, General 
Krag, and restored it to him, with the faintest trace 
of the fine line turning at the comer of his lip. 

The formalities of such ceremonies were waived 
entirely. Previously Harding’s army, declaring a 
revolution in the name of the Crevonian people, had 
announced, without flourish, amnesties and pardons 
for all political offences. Along with others this in- 
cluded the Princess Olga; and to convey to her the 
information that her place was in the home of her 
ancestors whose threshold her feet had never crossed, 
he requested permission to call there later in the day 
to pay his respects. 

For a moment her eye held a rising light of hope 
as if it were yet possible that he might intend her to 
281 


The Princess Olga 

remain in the palace after his mission was performed 
and he had returned to his own country. But his 
composed face carried no other news than that he 
requested her to take up her residence there, as he 
might have assigned quarters to his army or a post 
to one of his officers. Indeed, in the next breath, 
he spoke a sentence which jarred her momentary im- 
pression sufficiently for her to give a start. 

“When the Prince Alexander has been released,” 
he said, “and joined you at the palace, I shall call 
on you both.” 

Nevertheless, she obeyed his request, which was, 
in fact, a command. 

To Alexander he went with a sort of restrained ex- 
hilaration, feeling at last he should find a moment’s 
variation from Crevonian density. He discovered, 
with his usual satiric smile, that the Prince, long 
sobered by his confinement, was intensely dull, 

“You invited me to call,” smiled Harding; “here 
I am.” 

But though his Highness made a gallant attempt 
to meet the situation as was becoming to a cavalier 
who did not take royalty seriously, his forced good- 
nature, minus the bottle, fell flat. 

“The fun I have had,” said the Prince, with a 
guffaw, “thinking what a jackass I was to sit in a 
Paris dance-hall begging the man to come out here 
who was, in fact, on the job of tipping me off my 
uncle’s throne. Once, when I was in school, I 
crawled out on a shed with a squirt -gun to douse 
some of my friends in their room through the shut- 
ters. I couldn’t reach from where I was, and had 
to crawl over what seemed to be another shed with 
a thin board roof on it. The next thing I knew I 
was swimming in a cistern half full of water, howl- 
282 


The Princess Olga 

ing to those in the room to come and fish me out. 
After waiting for my old uncle to die, I found my- 
self inside here, and then waiting for my invited 
guest to come and unlock me and pack me off with 
the rest of the family out of the way.” 

There was something acrid in the smile with which 
the American accepted his disappointment over his 
Highness’s humor, so pudgy, lacking alcohol. Straight- 
way he took the liberated Prince with him to the 
palace, where Alexander had an opportunity to be- 
come acquainted with his cousin, Olga, whom he 
had never seen, while the American went over 
some immediate business of the hour with Mor- 
daunt. 

When he had finished and could give his attention 
to the royal cousins, Alexander was sunk in gloom. 
The Princess had a look as if her cheek were ready 
to go all pale with anger at something for which 
Providence was responsible, though mortals must be 
blamed, since they must pay the reckoning. Har- 
ding did not stay long in an atmosphere charged 
with slumbering friction. 

Against his going his Highness protested, boister- 
ously, yet with feeble conviction. 

“Of course,” declared Alexander, “we haven’t any 
misconceptions as to who is the ruler here and where 
our family stands in this situation. Whatever you 
say is the law; and nobody recognizes that fact bet- 
ter than we do — if,” he added, somewhat nervously 
for a hearty fellow, “I may be permitted to speak 
for her Highness.” 

The Princess Olga gave him a haughty inclination 
of the head, still plumed. 

“As long as you are the real master of everything, 
and we are here only on sufferance, we hope you will 
283 


The Princess Olga 

think we shall find it agreeable if you lodge yourself 
here with us.” 

Alexander cast a side glance at her Highness, as if 
he were afraid to stay in the palace with her alone. 

“Of course,” he urged, with a sort of eager dis- 
quietude, “you will sleep under this roof, and — ” 

“I think,” interrupted Harding, “I shall sleep 
along with my men, where my work is.” 

“Of course, you are the master,” hesitated his 
Highness; “but — ” 

“I’ll bunk over in the garrison,” smiled the 
American. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


W HILE Harding rejected shelter under the roof 
of the palace, however, he was not to spend all 
his nights on the little army cot. 

Passing through the streets on his way to the 
arsenal from the Administration Building, where he 
had been working late over the plans for the reor- 
ganization of the state, a long arm reached out from 
a shadow and thrust a blade into his side. 

Harding had left his orderly behind to lock up a 
desk and turn out the lights. Running to overtake 
his commander, the fellow missed entirely the form 
stretched close to the wall and bleeding profusely. 
He made the garrison before he learned that his gen- 
eral had not passed in ahead of him. Mordaunt was 
waiting for his chief, and, always suspicious of his 
race, raised an alarm, hurrying back with the or- 
derly. He was bending over the body when Dr. 
Busche, who had been summoned, came rushing 
with a field -litter. The old German sobbed like a 
baby as they lifted the moveless frame to carry it 
back. But Mordaunt swore, with his fist clinched 
up in the night, that if Harding died he would burn 
the roof of every house in Borglitch over the heads 
of the inmates. 

As Harding himself said from the hospital bed on 
the day after, however, there was no great damage 
done. He had lain some time unattended, and the 
loss of blood was a matter of mending in a few days. 
19 285 


The Princess Olga 

“I shall be out with you before the week is end- 
ed,” he smiled. “Then we’ll finish up the work, 
Tommy. Meanwhile, go ahead and lick what you 
can into shape on Concession lines.” 

“It is Godlike,” whispered Tommy, solemnly, to 
the Prince, when they came from the room. 

“Oh, it’s a disease,” answered his Highness, in a 
tone of affable assurance; “like a passion for spend- 
ing your money at Monte Carlo or on ballet girls. 
He gets his fun differently from me; but it is what 
we are both after.” 

Harding, however, did not miss the opportunity 
to point to the Princess Olga a moral which he did 
not suggest to the amiable Alexander. 

This blow was struck after Crevonia had swelled 
itself with a large pride — not over the rising of the 
people, as it was officially declared, nor the downfall 
of a dynasty, nor the regulation of finances, nor even 
the equalizing of taxes and the instituting of schools. 
What filled the populace with joy was not that, for 
the first time in its history, after a change of rule, 
there had been no burning and plunder in the capital, 
with wails from those who possessed and prodigality 
by those who robbed the possessors. They were in 
an ecstasy of delirium over the acknowledgment in 
the European press that Crevonia now enjoyed the 
complete paraphernalia of a full-fledged nation, or 
would when the committee of reorganization had 
selected a sovereign and hereditary line. 

This sublime fact was toasted nightly by patriotic 
Crevonia in every drinking -place; and whereas the 
streets might have run blood after a revolution, they 
flowed only cheap wine. It was at this time of ac- 
claim and celebration over the newer grandeur of the 
race that the blade was buried in the flank of the 
286 


The Princess Olga 

man who had walked into the capital without 
butchering its inhabitants, if they resisted and 
stripping them if they did not. And it was the 
mockery of the whole achievement that the aveng- 
ing spirit who struck down Harding, as the assassin 
proudly revealed himself, was the kinsman of one of 
those whom Harding had executed on the day after 
his first march, so that, though there should be war, 
the women of Crevonia might not be molested. 

When the Princess Olga came to the hospital to 
see him amid the nurses, with their flowing frocks 
and linen -bound heads, he looked up at her, smiling 
the patient smile of the tutor. 

“Has any one told your Highness,” he asked, 
“what it was — why it was done?” 

She bowed her head in humility for the fresh in- 
dignity which could be charged against her race; but 
the old purpose shone from her eyes. 

“I shall be going away soon,” he went on, quietly. 
“When I am gone I wonder if there will be truthful 
men to read wholesome lessons to those who ought 
to be able to understand them for themselves? As 
for the others, there is no need to preach to them — 
perhaps they are happier for not caring. But when 
one does care,” he asked, gravely, “must she not 
learn some time?” 

He said no more, for her visit was not expected 
by her people, by him, perhaps by herself, to be 
more than a decent formality in polite reproach of 
an act, which, under the circumstances, might sur- 
prise but not necessarily shock Crevonia. His eye, 
however — for this much from a plain man of work 
to a royal princess could be offered with propriety — 
did express approval of the green habit and curling 
plume which, calling from a ride, she wore again. 

287 


The Princess Olga 

But she went away with no sign that she was yet 
convinced. 

In the days when he was once more afoot, but not 
strong enough to work at the top of his normal 
capacity, she came to him one day in reference to 
specifications which he had requested, sending 
blanks to be filled out, concerning her personal ex- 
penses, under the settlements which were to be made. 

He was out on the rampart near the low wall 
where he had watched her through the glasses on 
the day of the garrison’s surrender. He stayed in 
the sun with a palpable relish, strolling slowly along 
a short path which he marked for himself. There 
was something hostile in her eye when she walked 
out where he was, but, looking at him, she forgot 
her resentment for the moment. 

“Will you sit there on the low part of the para- 
pet?” he asked. “It is very comfortable, as I have 
often found in recent days. Or shall I have a man 
bring you a chair?” 

“I’ll sit there,” she agreed; and climbed up, with 
the aid of his hand, extended with the old confidence. 

She scanned him with deliberation. 

She could see that faint crow’s-feet were traced 
around the corners of his eyes; and the hollows of 
the cheek, faded from its brown, seemed to be per- 
manently there. 

“You are not yet well,” she said, simply. 

“I am as good as well,” he smiled. 

“But you look — ” She did not explain further. 

“Sometimes I get tired of it,” he replied, seriously. 
Then, more lightly, “It is not very exciting; a keen 
edge on work makes it run more swiftly, though not 
always more smoothly.” 

“ And this is dull ?” 


288 


The Princess Olga 

“Some of it — much of it,” he agreed. 

“Because of the people — ^the Crevonians?” 

“ I am bound to confess it,” he said, frankly; “they 
respond as laggards, sometimes not at all.” 

“You must give them time; old habits are not 
thrown off at once by any one.” 

“This is far more than habit,” he smiled; “the 
fault is functional — organic.” 

It never pleased her to hear the truth of her race, 
perhaps, because she realized so clearly that it was 
the truth. 

“I came,” she answered, rather sharply, “to find 
some fault myself with the habits or methods of others. ’ ’ 

He asked for enlightenment with the grave smile, 
saying nothing in words. 

“You requested information as to my personal 
needs,” she said, flushing only with tiny circles on 
her cheeks. 

“To govern the settlements,” he assented. 

“And I gave it to you,” she replied. 

“The amount — ^the total,” he corrected her, quietly. 
“I asked for specifications — ^the needs itemized.” 

“It is a pettiness that puts an indignity on me,” 
she charged, with a quick rush of words. 

“It does not annoy you nearly so much as it does 
me,” he smiled, sympathetically; “but this is the 
way of bankers, and they have more to say as to 
what we shall do in the premises than we have.” 

“Am I to enter every possible item?” she pro- 
tested, scornfully. “Needles and pins?” 

” I am afraid you will have to, if you wish our friends 
to allow all that you require,” he laughed. “This is 
what they ask for — this, also, is organic.” 

She looked at his thin face, smiling not derision, a 
sort of sympathetic tolerance. 

289 


The Princess' Olga. 

“I am very foolish to be angry,” she laughed. 

“Not foolish,” he returned; “only partially in- 
itiated.” 

He knew he was to have the list without more 
argument, and pointed across the valley, up where his 
little army had waited as the impending thunderbolt. 

“I had a fine appetite for every meal when we 
were up there,” he said, thoughtfully. “It is differ- 
ent here.” 

She accepted that remark as his apology for being 
part of the pettiness which she denounced. Now her 
face brightened, with the light of archness slipping 
out of her eyes. 

“You are not getting used to their ways,” she 
laughed, “ better than the Crevonians are to yours.” 

“And I don’t think I should ever,” he admitted, 
soberly. “Nevertheless, it being their business, not 
mine, I should perform it so as to satisfy them.” 

“ So shall I — since I must, or go hungry,” she 
laughed. 

“It is good policy,” he said, quietly. 

He offered no more words ; his expression of coun- 
tenance revealed that he did not understand the 
royal attitude of willing dependency. It made the 
color spring to her face again, and for a while she 
held aloof. In the end she took up the conversation 
without asperity. 

“It is very still and lovely down there,” she said, 
glancing into the valley. 

His eye followed hers till it reached and rested on 
the part of the plain across which he had galloped to 
check her progress over the mine. 

“But, after all, not of much use,” he said. 

“Why,” she asked, sharply, “do you desire every- 
thing in the world to be of use?” 

290 


The Princess Olga 

“It is not a question of desire,” he answered, 
quietly; “it is the law of the world — necessity. All 
of us — so nearly all that the exceptions are a neg- 
ligible quantity — must work. Since there must be 
work there should be places where we may do it, and 
material.” 

“This,” she flared at him, defiantly, “sounds like 
another lesson.” 

But he did not answer her. The light lying at the 
corner of his mouth was not the subtle one; it was 
expressive of a weariness. Again he looked over to 
the crest where he had found keenness for what 
there was to do. 

Suddenly her face was enlivened as if it were for 
her to lighten his tedium as a child will seek to 
amuse one older and sombre. Her glance, too, fol- 
lowed to the mountain -top, where he had first met 
the Princess Olga, a soft laughter rippling off her 
parted lips, archness and mischief bubbling from her 
dancing eyes, as delighted with a roguish prank. 

“You have nev er confessed , ’ ’ she said , “ that , though 
you thwarted and humiliated me so often, you were 
astonished to find there was another Princess Olga 
than the little aunt — the dear little fat aunt?” 

She held her eager face forward, waiting for his 
confession, its spirit all girlish and light-hearted. 

“Your Highness,” he answered, thoughtfully, “I 
might confess so many things that are not true and 
deny so many that are that it would be of no avail 
to begin the long account.” 

She started, looking puzzled, but insisted upon 
her answer. 

“Once,” he said, “I thought there must come a 
time when we should. need to have an accounting — 
in a clearing-house such as our friends the bankers 
291 


The Princess Olga 

use to adjust their claims against one another. As 
events went on, however, there was no need.” 

She waited for him to explain why, a little frown 
clouding her forehead at the mention of the bankers ; 
but he did not go on. 

“Why?” she asked. 

“The obligations cancelled themselves, and the 
items disappeared from the ledgers.” 

“How?” she demanded. 

“Some things which I wished to know made them- 
selves clear in the light of later happenings ; others it 
became needless to clarify.” 

He cast a pebble over the side, and, beginning a de- 
scent, it struck and stayed on a ledge farther down. 

“First,” he said, absently, “there was the auto- 
mobile mishap. The truth demonstrated itself that 
information was sought as to whether I was in the 
habit of going to a certain place; it could have been 
obtained without the expedient. There was the de- 
sire to know if I were interested in the financial 
backer of Prince George. I declared frankly I was 
interested in neither of them. Then as to the pur- 
pose of my movements in Berlin. Next the discov- 
ery, at my assurance, that there was no tie with Prince 
Alexander. After that — ” He broke off. 

“After that?” she repeated. 

He shrugged his shoulders. Then he pointed down 
where the stone had lodged. 

“These fortifications,” he smiled, “were rebuilt a 
few years ago. A good thing to do would have been 
to sink them. Down there they might have been of 
service; it would have been less easy to shell them. 
In olden days, when the range of any weapon was 
short, men built high to be above their reach. Now 
such works are only a conspicuous target.” 

292 


The Princess Olga 

He looked down again, not noticing her blushes at 
his fresh conviction of her people for incurable stu- 
pidity. 

“I should say,” he added, “that they were rebuilt 
within the last five years.” 

“Lessons,” she exclaimed, under her breath; “al- 
ways lessons.” 

“Not always,” he dissented, quietly. “Only so 
long as the teacher is — ” He did not finish. 

“Unwearied?” she took up. 

He bowed, his eye straightway roaming over the 
valley to the farthest hamlet with its thin smoke 
curling in the clear air. 

“It is calm and peaceful there,” he mused; “too 
quiet — no, perhaps it is better. There is nothing 
worth the while that is in use but the Concession — it 
is gone to others. There is nothing left that could 
be of use but the river — it does not flow for Crevonia. 
Some time it will for some one — not Crevonia.” 

Her lip shook under the instruction of the master; 
but his gaze sought the high top, lingering there. 

“After a while,” he said, thoughtfully, “there was 
no excuse for going on with the clearing-house ac- 
counts; they could have come to nothing.” 

But, though he had been gripping his feelings 
through it all, he got away from himself, wheeling 
on her abruptly, his voice strangely eager and harsh, 
as if long fretting, perhaps in the sick - room, had 
worn his self-mastery threadbare. 

“I don’t suppose,” he said, quickly, “you ever 
asked yourself whether you would do better to 
choose your course in life — one can choose and make 
it — where it would satisfy, or to whirl in eddies 
caused by other forces, which toss one to misery, if 
not,” he added, grimly, “to perdition.” 

293 


The Princess Olga 

She shot him an inquiring look, letting her lashes 
veil her eye in the old, half -lidded way. 

“I don’t suppose,” he continued, savagely, “real 
happiness makes any difference to ambition — infatu- 
ation ?” 

Her gaze, now steady, denied him his desire, and 
the strong spirit of him rose to beat down anything 
that crossed his purpose. And this was the purpose 
of his existence. 

“You shall seek crowns and thrones, and adula- 
tion and flattery, and vanity and mockery,” he de- 
clared, oddly intensifying his tautological protest 
with a rhythmic arm movement, “and you will never 
catch the faintest reflection of what a woman like 
you could gain from honest love.” 

He took a turn on the turf, his thinned form 
tensely gathered to spring whither his emotions 
urged him, then stopped before her, scanning her long. 

“To you, with your way of thinking,” he said, 
hardily, “it may be a presumption for a man, a 
plain man — nothing but a man — to think he should 
have the woman he loves; at least, even you will 
concede he can love.” 

He probed the pools of mystery behind the dark 
lashes; but they half-lidded themselves again. He 
gave a battling lift to his head, turning his back 
while he recovered his control. 

At the gesture she had leaned both her little hands 
on the masonry, gazing away to the spot where the 
army had held its lofty camp. She faced aroimd now, 
watching the sentry pace his beat — once, twice. 

“I will send the blanks filled out,” she said, in a 
natural voice. “Itemized?” 

“If you please,” he agreed. 


CHAPTER XXVII 



HEN he got entirely well, as there was never 


vv any doubt he would, he went back to his work 
in the Administration Building, staying late as be- 
fore, seeking the arsenal for sleep without taking 
precautions against danger to himself. It was the 
Princess Olga who suggested that, after his previous 
experience, he should not walk the streets in the late 
hours. They had been going over some routine data 
which affected the adjusting of claims of her family 
to property in the kingdom. He had finished, and 
was taking his leave. It was night. 

“Back to the arsenal?” she asked. 

“Not at once,” he answered; “there is a bit of 
work over in the bureau yet.” 

He said good-night again, and was passing from 
the room, when she called to him, somewhat ner- 
vously. 

“I don’t think you ought to do it,” she said. 

“Work?” he smiled. 

“Go around at night unattended, or only with an 
orderly.” 

“I don’t imagine there is further danger,” he said; 
“if I did I should not take the risk.” 

“Why not be certain?” she asked. 

“It is a good deal of a nuisance.” 

“I — we,” she said, hurriedly, “wish you would 
not.” 

“It is true,” he replied, thoughtfully, “that any- 


295 


The Princess Olga 

thing of the kind — anything like that other — might 
make you feel the shame of it. I should not wish to 
do anything that might cause you and his Highness 
more of such distress.” 

“It was very — unpleasant to us,” she hesitated. 

“ It would be very disagreeable to me to have your 
house feel reproach,” he answered. “I do not see 
how either of you should take blame to yourself, or 
accept the reproach. Nevertheless, if you do — ” 

“We should,” she admitted. 

“That is a consideration,” he agreed, “which I 
ought not to ignore.” 

She waited for him to finish. He started to go 
again. 

“Though I do not think there is the slightest 
thing to be feared now,” he said, “I will use a car- 
riage at night, under the circumstances.” 

“Thank you,” she murmured, after him. 

Then his work was done, though he had given no 
intimation of its completion, going on to the last 
without comment. But he asked the Prince to dine 
with him. 

He had chosen a little restaurant where they might 
have a private room and Alexander his favorite wine. 

“ I have been doing my virtuous duty to the situa- 
tion,” declared the jovial Prince, “taking dinner at 
the palace every evening; but it has been a jolly 
tight strain on my patience. I am glad to cut it 
out for one evening,” he added, with fervor. 

“The Krags,” assented Harding, “ aren’t the most 
lively couple in the world.” 

“Well, old Krag is as solemn as an owl, with a 
block of wood for a head, and a nail driven in for 
brains ; and -the old lady is inspired putty. But they 
296 


The Princess Olga 

are cheerful companions, compared to my little spit- 
fire cousin.” 

“Aren’t you on good terms yet?” 

“It is an armed neutrality, with a challenge to an 
engagement every five seconds,” laughed his High- 
ness, with bitterness, filling his glass recklessly. 

“ I shouldn’t think any one would want to fight 
your Highness,” smiled Harding; for he liked him. 

“Oh, she is mad with the Crevonians, and she 
takes it out of me.” 

Harding looked his surprise. 

“It began the very first night. With the coffee I 
offered her my cigarette-case, and, from the way she 
refused it, you’d have thought I had proposed to 
borrow her pension. She couldn’t have been more 
indignant, or pretended to be, if she had been an 
American.” 

“Smoking may not agree with her — anyway, such 
things are a matter of individual selection.” 

“ But she need not show priggishness about it — 
that is too much like Nick.” 

“Like his Highness, the late Prince Nicholas?” 

“Terrible prig, though it is rotten the way my 
pretty little cousin slams him about the bank. She 
is pretty, isn’t she, if she did not have so much 
vinegar on her tongue? Of course, Nick was a 
partner in the bank, and there is no sense in saying 
he was a clerk. My, my, but she can flash a wicked 
look!” 

“But he was a prig?” 

“The biggest ever; and, the Lord love you! before 
he put his fortune in the bank he had a scheme to 
go in for publishing tracts — he said there was money 
in it. And, between you and me, he wasn’t any too 
much different from the rest of our precious family; 

297 


The Princess Olgd 

\ 

only he was pompous, and could pull as long a face 
as my old uncle’s chaplain.” 

He got another bottle into action, and chuckled. 

“For a time he hovered between the tract enter- 
prise and stock in a race-track. And old Nick was 
the horse on whom the bankers placed their money. 
He certainly had it on me.” 

He straightened, in the fashion he had of return- 
ing to a very steady demeanor when he was not en- 
tirely firm. 

“You never told me,” he said, “how Nick really 
got the bullet in him. Some of our people, I sup- 
pose?” 

Harding looked at him quietly. 

“He was killed,” he answered, “ by one of our out- 
posts.” 

“Nick?” 

Harding nodded gravely. 

“ He was halted by the sentry, but would not stop. 
The fellow cried to him that if he did not halt he 
would fire. His Highness did not answer who he 
was. He replied that he did not propose to have 
any one dictating to him in Crevonia whether he 
should walk or stand.” 

“That was Nick, all right,” agreed his cousin. 

“The sentry warned him again that he must 
stand till the corporal of the guard could be sum- 
moned, but his Highness would not listen.” 

“Of course not — not pompous little Nick,” de- 
clared Alexander. 

“He cried out impatiently that he would have the 
fellow punished. ‘Maybe so,’ said my man, ‘but if 
you come on I’ll fire.’ His Highness persisted. He 
said to the sentry, ‘You don’t know who I am,’ but 
would not tell who he was. The fellow gave back, 
298 


The Princess Olga 

*It doesn’t matter who you are; you will be shot if 
you don’t wait for the corporal of the guard.’ Then 
the Prince cautioned him, ‘I’d have you know, 
clown, I am the master of everything in Crevonia.’ 
But my fellow sang back, ‘There is only one master 
here, and I’ll be shooting you under his orders if you 
don’t stop damn quick!’ Then your cousin repeated, 
‘You don’t know who I am, clown, or you would be 
singing a different tune.’ He continued to approach.” 

Harding paused. Alexander was gazing with re- 
flective eyes into his wine. 

‘‘You know what a soldier is — how he talks. The 
sentry called out, and for the last time, ‘ If you were 
God Almighty, you could not come a step nearer, 
under the orders of the only master I know here!’ 
And he fired.” 

“Nick,” said the Prince, with a whimsical smile, 
would have made an admirable king — so pompous. 
He could have strutted around that way in perfect 
content — just as if he were pulling the strings of the 
bankers’ puppet-show. But it killed him.” 

He sat back in his chair, surveying the lean, calm 
face across the table. 

“ However, in the name of Crevonia, do you do it ?” 
he asked. 

“Do what?” 

“Make soldiers — men of our people?” 

“Work,” answered Harding. 

“But I don’t believe,” declared the Prince, with a 
little oath, “there is another man who could have 
done it with them.” 

“There are a good many thousand scattered over 
the world who could,” answered the American, quiet- 
ly. “They have been brought up to do things, and 
they go ahead and do them.” 

299 


The Princess Olga. 

The Prince conceded the point with a good-natured 
wave of his hand. After all, the Crevonians were not 
worth arguing for or against. But there was himself, 
a more interesting topic. 

“Well, Nick was welcome to it — if he hadn’t gone 
and had himself drilled,” he said, frankly. “I found 
that out for myself. I pretty nearly reached my 
limit waiting here for my uncle to die. Till then I 
never realized how I hated Crevonia — and how at- 
tractive Paris was. I hung on manfully to the last; 
but, honest, it was a relief to discover that Olga 
stood a chance of filling his shoes. Then, when I 
heard you were spilling her milk-pans, I had a series 
of joyous spasms to think I was in prison, instead of 
on the throne; for, of course, I knew there would be 
no room in the same lot for your army and ours. 
Yet, if I had been the succeeding ruler, instead of in 
jail, I might have had to go out on a horse to lead 
our troops against you. That is one of the very 
nastiest things about a position like mine. You 
have sense enough, maybe, to know what is foolish; 
but you must go out and do the foolish things, just 
the same, because this is expected of you in our code. 
And, of course, I should have been shot, joining old 
Nick; for, being a man, I should have had to fight 
before surrendering, as my cousin Olga very sensi- 
bly did; and” — he laughed jovially — “we shouldn’t 
have been sitting here enjoying this little dinner — 
good wine, if we are in Crevonia.” 

“Were you really glad to find that you were out 
of it?” questioned Harding, thoughtfully. 

“Honest, when they told me you were going to 
set Nick up after you disposed of Olga — my friends 
in Berlin got word to me — I was sorry for him; and 
he never before deserved the sympathy of anybody.” 

300 


The Princess Olga 

Harding laughed at the manner of Alexander’s 
self -congratulation . 

“I don’t know how you felt for me,” averred the 
Prince; “but you did me a good turn when you 
made it sure that I could go back to Paris and stay 
there. I fancy you are going to let me have at 
least what was allowed me in my uncle’s reign, for 
you are a good fellow — a damned good fellow,” he 
said, with a slide in his notes. 

“I think those who are arranging the settlements 
are disposed to be liberal,” assented Harding. 

“Stuff with them!” avowed Alexander. “What 
you say will be done.” 

“It has been suggested,” remarked the American, 
tentatively, “that it might be advisable to consider 
composing more than one claim by some sort of 
family marriage.” 

“Not for me!” declared the Prince, in genuine 
alarm. “The most that I ask is Paris; the least I 
will take is that I do not marry my little cousin with 
the vinegar tongue and insulting eyes.” 

He quaffed a glass with a single swallow. 

“It’s devilish odd,” he went on, “how the good 
looks of royal families mostly run to the men. Gen- 
erally a princess has a face that would drive a storm 
out to sea to get away from the sight of it ; but, as a 
rule, she is meek and makes a good mother. Now 
my cousin Olga is pretty. I am astonished to see 
how pretty she can look — and I had heard she was 
nothing much for beauty. But, Lord! wouldn’t a 
man have a time living in the same house with her!” 

“She has spirit,” agreed Harding. 

His Highness took more wine, somewhat hastily, 
to chase off the apparition. 

“Spirit!” he exclaimed. “Oh no — temper. It is 
301 


30 


The Princess Olga 

a pity Stephen didn’t live — I mean a pity for that 
plan of ironing out claims with a consolidating wed- 
ding. He married Olga when she was a baby or 
something; and, if he had not died, he would have 
to stand in line for the sacrifice — I take it you are 
going to pick Olga.” 

“The chances are in her favor,” admitted Harding. 

“Call it favor for her, if you please,” said the 
Prince, with emphasis; “name it disfavor for the 
poor devil who has to marry her. Stephen didn’t 
know how lucky he was to be carried off prema- 
turely.” 

“You would not refuse,” smiled Harding, “if this 
should actually be the decision?” 

“Refuse? I’d commit suicide first! There is only 
one thing,” declared Alexander, vigorously, “that 
could make me take the thing willingly now, any- 
way. If you would stay here and run the in- 
stitution for me as an elective prince regent, or 
grand protector, or anything you should fix up, I 
could think of it — single - handed — not with my 
cousin. You could do the work, and I’d live in 
Paris. Otherwise, cut me out. If you think it’s 
such a damned soft thing to marry her,” he cried, 
very excitedly, “why don’t you do it yourself, and 
see how you like it? Why, hang me!” he went on, 
his anxiety driving more wine to his head, “I’d 
rather have my allowance cut in half than come 
down to breakfast and sit opposite the sneer that 
would be on her pretty face — yes, sir! pretty, which 
makes it all the worse — sneer on her face because the 
Lord High Chamberlain hadn’t had the lawn mowed. 
You’d think,” he hiccoughed, “that because some 
bankers had engaged an American engineer to come 
over here and kick us off the throne, every noble in 
302 


The Princess Olga, 

Europe ought to get out of bed with the birds. 
You’d think Olga was the only man in the family, 
the way she looks at you when you pour a glass of 
wine — damn it! that is the meanest thing about her 
— she won’t out and say it half the time; she looks it.” 

He tried to light a cigarette several inches beyond 
its end. 

“What the devil do I care,” he demanded, “if the 
Crevonians can’t hit anything with their muskets, 
unless they don’t aim at it? Did I ever say they 
could? What the devil difference would it make if 
I did care? It’s the affair of the bankers. Yet her 
persistent, vixenish attitude holds me accountable 
for the whole blamed business! Why, man,” he 
groaned, “what kind of existence do you think any- 
body would lead with her? She cuts her hair!” he 
cried, in a sort of terror. “What chance would a 
man have for comfort with a wife who wears her 
hair short ?” 

He gathered himself with sternness. 

“If you want to arrange any marriage to settle 
this thing,” he said, doggedly, “you marry her your- 
self.” 

“ But I ^m not in line for wearing crowns,” laughed 
Harding; “it is not in the order of my business.” 

“That,” declared the Prince, with impressive, ac- 
cusing gravity, which wobbled slightly near the end, 
“is why you are so mighty free at making such un- 
pleasant suggestions to others.” 

“But we must arrange this affair somehow, your 
Highness.” 

“Well, then,” retorted the Prince, with a very 
sober mien, “you go and drag George in. George 
would do anything to get his income increased. 
Don’t let him get to know her till after they are 

303 


The Princess Olga 

married. He will do it. That fellow Cadron, who 
foots his bills, in the hope of having the powers 
settle his notes some day at twenty per cent, in- 
terest, will make him do it. There is your victim,” 
he grinned, sardonically. ‘‘You go and do it to 
George, if you aren’t brave enough to do it yourself.” 

The dinner was over, and they started out to the 
Prince’s carriage. 

“You will not consider it, then?” asked Harding. 

“I’ll work for my living first!” declared Alexander, 
with hearty enthusiasm. 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


H arding had not informed his Highness how 
soon he was to depart, how quickly the sov- 
ereignty must be decided. In the morning he gave 
the news to Mordaunt. 

“Within twenty-four hours,” he said, “I shall be 
heading the car for a spin over Crevonia, on my way 
to Weissburg, to take the rattle-trap train to-morrow 
night across Europe.” 

“Then we are starting for America?” cried his aid. 
Harding ignored the question. 

“I have two suggestions for you, Tommy,” he 
said, thoughtfully. “You can have the command 
of the army; and, in the viewpoint of the bankers, 
that will be about the biggest post in the kingdom. 
With them satisfied, you will be several degrees more 
important than the King — or the Queen.” 

Mordaunt was looking into a glass to measure with 
satisfaction his military figure. 

“ It is a very decent little army,” Harding went on; 
“I have assured the bankers you would keep it so.” 

Mordaunt took another mirror glance, full of ap- 
plause for himself as the commander-in-chief. 

“It will be certainly easier, perhaps better, than 
the other offer,” said Harding. “That one is, when 
you get tired of holding up the real, the only au- 
thority in Crevonia, if you feel like it you can come 
over to the United States and lend a hand at such 
work as stretching bridges across the Mississippi or 

305 


The Princess Olga, 

taking up a river from its bed and lifting it a few 
hundred miles out of its course, to make a garden of a 
desert. It is rather interesting work.” 

Mordaunt did a little strutting, while the Crevonian 
blood tingled in his veins at his martial grandeur. 

“You can take command at once,” said Harding. 

“Yes, sir,” answered his aid. 

“ I will make out the papers this afternoon and give 
them to you.” 

“You want the trunks ready to-night?” asked the 
Crevonian. 

“Any time to-night — ^for an early morning start.” 

” Anybody else going?” 

“No one but me. Only my two trunks; they will 
go in the tonneau. It will just hold them.” 

“Then, by gad, sir!” replied Mordaunt, with a little 
flash of eye, “ I suppose I must leave my luggage be- 
hind. But I can get another outfit in Berlin.” 

“ I thought you would say that. Tommy,” an- 
swered Harding, quietly. 

And then he went to take farewell of the Princess 
Olga. She was out for a horseback ride, in the green 
habit and the long, white plume. He waited till she 
should return ; for, his work all done, there remained 
only this leave-taking. She was long in coming; but, 
for a man of action, he had an unusual faculty of lei- 
surely content when there was nothing to do. He 
was studying a portrait of that other Olga when her 
Highness appeared at the far end of the drawing- 
room, and he did not hear her. At the memory of 
her asking him that day at the arsenal if he had not 
been surprised that there were two of them, herself 
and her dear little aunt — the “dear little fat Princess 
Olga,” she had rippled — he gave a low laugh. Then 
he caught her reflection in a tall, gilt mirror, showing 
306 


The Princess Olga, 

the very wave of the plume, and he spoke to her as 
he turned with his greeting. 

“Your Highness,” he said, “I have come to say 
good-bye.” 

Her eyes went round with astonishment, for there 
had been no previous intimation of his going. 

“Do you leave here soon, then?” she asked. 

He indicated the nearness of the event by his reply. 

“I have come,” he repeated, “to say good-bye.” 

“For a trip — a visit, perhaps?” she asked. 

“For good, your Highness,” he responded. 

She had stopped several paces from him. She ap- 
proached to the back of a chair, he standing on the 
other side. Then he took it and turned it for her, 
going around in front of her. She sat down, looking 
at him, surprise still behind the dark lashes, on the 
small face a faint, uncertain light. 

“I am sorry,” she murmured. 

The grave smile acknowledged her words. 

“There are a few things,” he began, quietly, 
“which I felt I ought to say in explanation of a de- 
cision you have possibly expected, but which I have 
not seen my way to make.” 

In her expression there was less of pain than of 
wonder at the suddenness of his going. 

“I have canvassed from all sides what you have 
set before me,” he said, “and I have tried to govern 
my opinion by my whole duty as I have seen it — to 
those who engaged me for this work, to you, to myself.” 

It was sufficient that his decision was adverse to her 
hopes, and she let her eyes wander away to hide what 
they told ; but he could see that she listened carefully. 

“First, then, from the side of the bankers: There 
has seemed to me serious question that your rule 
would be satisfactory to them — in the long-run. I 

307 


The Princess Olga 

should say frankly that, from some views, it would 
commend itself more than that of any other who 
might be deemed available; but, against that con- 
sideration, I have found others of which I could not 
dispose so easily.” 

She questioned him with dissenting eyes. 

“It has been suggested — there has been mention 
of something of which you yourself once spoke — an 
arrangement by which, perhaps, the choice could 
become more easy; I mean a marriage whereby the 
kingdom would gain both a sovereign and a soldier. 
The importance of the army cannot be too carefully 
estimated.” 

She flushed, two small white circles marking them- 
selves in the warming cheeks. 

“But there seemed no one — I could think of no 
one whom I would willingly select — pardon the 
phrase; there seemed no one.” 

She was not angry, as her color had threatened; 
for in his face was something of the suppressed emo- 
tion which she had beheld on that night in his tent 
when she had declared her purpose as to Nicholas. 
It first hushed her, and then made her shift her 
glance nervously from his scrutiny. 

“Your cousin Alexander did me the honor to hint 
that the problem might be simplified if I should stay 
here permanently, in some capacity that would secure 
both the safety of the bankers’ interests and the dig- 
nity of the crown,” he added, with the fine smile; 
“but that seemed to riie entirely unfitting.” 

With his thoughtful gaze he reviewed for a mo- 
ment the various phases of the problem as he had 
studied it. 

“After all, the great difficulty in the way of my 
reaching a conclusion in your favor has been your- 
308 


The Princess Olga 

self. If I had thought that your desire to reign was 
founded merely on petty vanity or on an unintelli- 
gent ambition, I think I should not have hesitated 
to give the choice to you. But I believe — I know — 
that you would never be content merely to play the 
puppet’s part — it can never be more — gratifying 
your love of tinsel state and tawdry honor. I am 
sure that you would strive to do things for your 
people which would bring you into conflict both 
with them and with the arbiters of their destiny. 
You would persist in a vain effort to make them a 
nation in fact ; you would only bruise yourself cruelly 
against the bars of your own cage. You would 
strive unceasingly to lift them to a plane which is in 
your ideal. They cannot be lifted, save by the in- 
tervention of Providence. You would hope that, in 
the end, you would free them from the yoke of foreign 
domination. The truth is, they must be surely fet- 
tered until they are swallowed. The time will come 
when the two powers which covet the river — hardly 
anything else they care for — will either strike a bar- 
gain, each voluntarily, or one, grown strong enough 
to defy the other, will take what is wanted by force. 
That end is inevitable. I believe it is near. All this 
would cause you a bitterness and sureness of anguish 
into which I would not, of my own doing, thrust you. 
Therefore I have been unable to reach a decision my- 
self — I am avoiding the responsibility.” 

Her ears startled her; for he was hot the man 
either to shirk the most unwelcome responsibility or 
to fail of a decision. 

“You are going away,” she murmured, “and have 
not decided the succession?” 

“I have been unable to decide more than that 
others must reach the determination. I have done 

309 


The Princess Olga. 

my work so far as I can approve the doing of it; it 
does not appeal to me to do what I cannot approve.” 

With the plume she made a little gesture of hope- 
lessness, but not of resignation. 

‘‘You will not decide?” she repeated. 

“ I am unwilling; I have left the choice to another.” 

“To whom?” she faltered, all her hopes withering 
in her anxious words. 

“ To one of your own house.” 

“To Alexander?” she exclaimed, breathlessly. 

“To the Princess Olga,” he answered, calmly.^ 

She had arisen. She took a step forward, a sort 
of wild, unbelieving joy streaming from her face. 
She wavered and sat down again, breathing quickly. 

“Thank you, thank you,” she murmured, indis- 
tinctly. 

“I feel,” he said, gravely, “that you have nothing 
for which to thank me; on the contrary, I fear you 
may think other thoughts of what I have done be- 
fore your reign is over.” 

But she did not heed him. 

“My people, my people!” she murmured, in an 
ecstasy of gratitude and resolution. 

“No,” he said, a little harshly, “the goods and 
chattels — no less they than their sovereign — of those 
who have sent me here, who will send others, as oc- 
casion may arise, to do their will, until such time as 
Crevonia has been devoured.” 

He pointed out the window to the west, where lay the 
empire of which the Duchy of Weissburg was a child. 

“Her Highness will pardon me, I hope, if I remind 
her that it will be well for her to begin her work” — 
his tone lingered on the word without irony — “with 
a full realization of what it is. Perhaps then the 
abandonment of delusions will cause less bitterness.” 

310 


The Princess Olga 

A cloudy light flitted across her eyes. Then she 
turned them to his, more hopefully. 

“But it is mine, it is mine!” she cried, in a low, 
glad voice, like a child humored in a dear caprice. 

“That,” he answered, seriously, “is for your High- 
ness to decide.” 

She looked up again, and he saw that her mind 
had stretched to the touching of the prize; her hand 
would grasp it. 

“ I take it,” she said. “ I thank you. I shall be a 
good queen to them; a good mother to her children.” 

He smiled over her sadly. But his expression was 
lost to her; her vision was fixed on the child’s dream 
of a child’s life. 

“Your Highness having decided, then,” he said, 
quietly, “may I be permitted to make my farewell?” 

With no tremor she gave him her hand. But 
when he took a step away, in the act of withdraw- 
ing, a sense of failing security, of conviction disap- 
pearing with his presence, rushed over her; for she 
cast him an appealing, alarmed glance. 

“ If there were some one — some man ” — she laid 
stress on the word, as Locke — the great Locke, of 
Locke, Cromwell & Co. — had done in stating his 
needs to Armitage, “who could help me.” 

“When you wish aid,” he replied, dryly, “you will 
call upon the banks; they will be sure to respond, 
since they hold their interests in the problem at a 
larger value than those of any one else. You can 
count on them — in fact,” he added, with the smile, 
“you will not escape their aid.” 

“But I do not mean — I do not wish that kind,” 
she faltered. “If you could give me some one — 
some one you would select.” 

“I have not been able to find him,” he answered. 

311 


The Princess Olga, 

“If you would stay,” she murmured, frightened; 
for the firm structure on which she had fancied she 
stood seemed to totter at his very farewell. 

“In what capacity?” he asked, calmly. 

“To be the prime-minister, the commander of the 
army — it would make little difference what men 
called it ; to be what you are now — ^what you always 
are,” she smiled, with a sad, unconquerable faith. 
“ The strong man, the power which bends others — 
to be the all,” she ran on, hurriedly, her eyes roving 
the room as if in search of escape from some danger. 

He shook his head slowly. 

“I should not be the all,” he corrected her. “Till 
now I have had a free hand. There were certain 
things for me to do;- no one cared to say how I should 
do them. I might move as I pleased, hew as I 
willed — it was all one to those who intrusted the 
work' to me so long as it was accomplished. But 
witti the work done, I, as you, or as any one, must 
become merely the responsive puppet. Hitherto I 
have been tearing down, building up at my pleasure. 
The construction completed, there remains nothing 
here but for one to live in it, passive. I might find 
it agreeable to upset a throne undirected, and, when 
it had been turned on its right side again, to place 
some one on it who would serve as an ornament. 
Not a large work, perhaps; not a lasting one, surely; 
but at least attractive to one’s energies during the 
process. But my hand is to hew, not to lie idle over 
a work that is achieved. I could not sit here to open 
letters from Berlin, and then listlessly watch their di- 
rections carried out. It is not possible for me to con- 
template that r 61 e.” 

He was sorry for her, and took another mental sur- 
vey of her situation. 


312 


The Princess Olga 

“I cannot help you in your need,” he said, gently. 
“ Not even Madame Vaillant,” he added, in a low voice, 
“ would have the right to ask this of me.” 

He would have turned again; but sjie stopped him 
with a little cry, so under her breath that he no more 
than heard it. 

“If there were another way,” she faltered, her 
eyes held off, her lashes down. But the spirit of her 
defiance in her many defeats flashed to him, and she 
faced him with courage. 

“For my people, whom I will love,” she said, 
quickly, but tremulously; “for my country, which 
I must serve well, I am bold enough to suggest 
what already has been mentioned — a suitable mar- 
riage.” 

“I could not advise the person,” he replied, coldly. 

“If there were — if you — ” She hesitated. 

He waited. 

“Would you,” she whispered, painfully, flushing 
fiery, “help me if — in that way?” 

Again he shook his head, turning it away. 

“A woman,” he said, in a sort of patient reproach, 
“could not suggest that plan to a man if she had in 
her heart what should be in the heart of one willing 
to join her life with his.” 

“I do not understand,” she breathed. 

“When he had hands to work, a will to achieve, to 
ask him to forego those gifts — to be a parasite on a 
people. It is in that way,” he added, gently, “we 
of our land must view the royal drone.” 

He looked at her with a slow smile. 

“I am an engineer,” he said; “an American — not 
for any of this.” 

She held up her little head more firmly, the plume 
quivering around the ringlets ; for he was right. 

313 


The Princess Olga 

“Good-bye,” she said, with an unsteady lip. 

And with that firm, high courage she watched him 
move up the long room, his form, in its easy carriage, 
instinct with the calm command of his nature; his 
stride sure, as at the head of his troops. And she 
let him go, though behind him the very atmosphere 
seemed to lose its tone of confidence and strength as 
this man, whose will achieved so easily and quietly, 
walked slowly towards the door; let him go past the 
last chair — out beyond in the high hall. 

She gave a gasp, shivering over the slender form, 
and then cried to him sharply, in fear. He turned, 
coming no farther than the threshold, standing there, 
a grave inquiry on the smooth, lean face. 

“You must tell me what to do — ^you must tell me,” 
she fluttered, still frightened. 

He half shrugged his shoulders, walking back more 
slowly than when he had gone — down the long room, 
her gaze on the unruffled features. Near her, as if 
he were calling and she asked him to do so, he placed 
his hat and gloves on a little table. He let his eyes 
rest on hers. 

“I could not tell her Highness, the Princess Olga,” 
he said; “for there is not, there never could be, such 
an understanding between her and the man of work 
as there should be for one to give such advice. I 
could not tell even Madame Vaillant, the woman; 
for, during a long time a shadow lay between her 
life and mine. Yet if I could tell Mademoiselle Vail- 
lant, the girl — the girl I saw in New York, followed 
in the steamer — there would be no need.” 

“No need?” she echoed. 

“Because,” he went on, “if it were Mademoiselle 
Vaillant she would know, without the advice of me 
or of any one, where she might cherish ideals that 

314 


The Princess Olga 

would not fail her, and where her hopes of the good, 
the lasting good, in life might be fulfilled — not here, 
in such surroundings, with these limitations, but in 
my country — not as the nominal queen, but as the 
true woman. If it were Mademoiselle Vaillant who 
was deciding, her heart would tell her what to say, 
where to go to find her happiness and her mission as 
well. I need not,” he added, with a note heard by 
her for the first time, tender with the grave. 

At his word and the tone she let her eyes down; 
yet, for the moment, shyness, with archness, peeped 
from them. 

“If it were Mademoiselle Vaillant who was decid- 
ing?” she murmured. 

“She would know,” he repeated. 

But then the slim form straightened, and he saw 
on her face the old light when she had resisted him. 
It was brave, yet not defiant ; proud, yet not haughty ; 
grave, like his, and confident. Her eyes met his 
steadily. 

“But,” she said, with conviction, “it is not Mad- 
emoiselle Vaillant who must answer; not even Ma- 
dame Vaillant, the woman. It is Olga, the Princess.” 

Though he were to lose her thus, he must ever ad- 
mire her lofty spirit towards her duty as she beheld 
it, and he smiled faintly. 

“And Olga, the Princess,” she said, with a quick, 
clear note, “decides that — Alexander shall reign.” 

She held up her face to him — the face of Mademoi- 
selle Vaillant, the girl, for his arms were out-stretched 
to her. 


THE END 


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